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/ 
HISTORY 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY 



BY 



H. HOLLISTER, M. D 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 



SIXTH EDITION. 

REVISED AND ENLARGED. 



PRINTED AND BOUND BY 

THE TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

SCRANTON, PENNSYLVANIA. 
1903 



Lil 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S69, 

By H. HOLLISTER, M.D., 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern 
District of New Yorii. 



Copyright, 1885, by H. Hollister, M.D. 



By TransfeT. 



6-^3^7 ^^'^ 



PREFACE 



TO TIIR FIRST KDITION. 



In presenting to the public tliese " Contributions," it seems 
proper to state that the collection ot'tlie embodicl facts was more 
the result of the love possessed by the writer for sucli incidents and 
history, than the hope of either a pecuniary reward, or a literary 
reputation. 

Becoming familiar with a few features in the history of the 
Lackawanna Valley, the writer was induced, by the solicitations 
of his friends, to put them into a shape whereby their publication 
might possibly awaken an interest, or perhaps elicit new and more 
connected material from a i-egion where nothing yet had been 
done in the way of gathering its local history. 

From the absence of a proper and continued record — from 
indistinct and often conflicting memories — and from the death of 
all who were familiar with its earliest settlement, it is very proba- 
ble that events narrated are sometimes given in an imperfect, and 
even in an inaccurate manner. It would not be surprising if such 
was the fact ; but the reader must bear in mind that not oidy the 
personal, but tiie general history recorded hei-e was written while 
the author was engaged in a large practice, and harassed by all 
the continual anxieties occurring in one of the most exhausting 
and thankless professions in the country. 

While the author asks no indulgence from this circumstance, 
yet he apprehends that a practice of twelve years, with its too 
often accompanying annoyances— compelled to view human nature 



4 FKEFACE. 

ill every possible light, and encounter it in its most humiliating 
aspect — eminently fits him to bear the murmurs of those ^vho 
suppose that a volume can be as easily written as read. 

None of the Sketches are arranged in chronological order ; 
many are necessarily brief, meager, and unsatisfactory, owing to 
the great dearth of material ; while some, it is possible, do better 
justice to the subject. 

It would have given pleasure to the writer, to have presented 
a genealogical view of the original families in the valley ; but as 
this contemplated feature would necessarily have enlarged the 
volume beyond its intended limits, without adding much to its 
general interest, it was abandoned. 

The obligations of the writer are due to all his friends, w^ho 
have, by their liberal subscriptions to the volume, manifested 
such an interest in its Avelfare. 

H. HOLLISTEU. 

Providence^ Pa., 1857. 



The volume, of which a second edition is now published, has 
been so thoroughly modified and revised in its general outline, as 
to present the features of a different, and, I trust, a better work 
than the preceding one. Very many pages have been wholly 
obliterated ; the remainder re-written and radically changed, while 
a number of pages of interesting historical matter— sought after 
from trustworthy records and testimony with an earnestness that 
possibly may deserve expressions of approbation and success- 
have been added thereunto. 

In my former volume, I gave but a general recognition of the 
favors of my friends, who, in various ways, contributed toward 
its successful development. In this, I desire to return especial 
thanks to several persons whose manly sympathies and generous 
aid lay me under a grateful obligation and remembrance. 



PREFACE. 5 

For materials drawn from the Pennsylvania Archives and Colo- 
nial Records, and other authorities, appropriate acknowledgment 
appears in its proper place. In addition to these sources of infor- 
mation, fully noted and credited, I would return thanks to G. B. 
NiCHOLSOx, Esq., for access to the AVestmoreland Records ; to 
B. H. Theoop, M. D., for valuable suggestions in regard to the 
volume; to Selden T. Scranton, of Oxford Furnace, N. J., for 
acts of friendship which characterize his desire to make every man's 
])athway blossom with the rose ; to S. B. StuPvDevant, M. D., for fa- 
vors which were given in so cheerful a manner as to greatly enhance 
their value ; to the Rev. Dr. Peck, lor the biographical sketch of 
the late Hon. George W. Scranton ; to Hon. Steuben Jenkins, 
whose antiquarian knowledge promises to the world an invaluable 
documentary history of Gen. Sullivan's celebrated Wyoming 
I'xpedition in ] 779 ; to Stephen Rogers and D. Yarington, for 
papers concerning the settlement of C'arbondale ; to N. Ork & 
Co., of New York, and Eugene Frank, of Wilkes Barre, for 
their skillful execution of the cuts adorning the work, and to 
Harper & Brothers, for the sale and use of electrotypes, ilUis- 
t rating scenes in the Lackawanna Valley. 

The author of the following pages, who was not born ujjun tlie 
banks of the Lackawanna, but was nurtured among her mountains, 
would do injustice to his own feelings did he not gratefully 
acknowledge the kind, yet undeserved, encomiums of the editorial 
fraternity, and the favorable reception the community gave his 
*' Contributions" in 1857. May he not indulge in the hope that the 
young valley is not now less athletic and friendly than then? 

H. Hoi. lister. 
I^ovidence, Pa., 1869, 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, 



PAUS 

Slocum Hollow in 1840, - - - Frontispiece. 

Campbell's Ledge, - - - - - - 26 

Indian Map of Capoose, - - - - 31 

Bald Mount, - - - - - - - 65 

Ira Tripp, - - - - - - - 125 

MoNoCASY Island, - - - - - - 169 

Bloody Rock, - - - - - 170 

John B. Smith, - - - - - - 209 

Nay-auc; Falls, - 212 

The Old Slocum House, - - - - - 219 

Wm. Henry, - - 225 

SeLDEN T. ScU ANTON, - - - - - 241 

Joseph H. Scranton, - - - - - 245 

B. H. Throop, M. D., ----- 249 

Scranton in 1860, - - - - - - 261 

First Baptist Church in Carbondale, - - - 299 

First Locomotive run in America, - - - o54 

Thos. Dickson, - - - - - - 361 

Delaware Water Gap, . . . - . 389 

Hon. John Brisbin, - - - - - - 391 

Hon. George W. Scranton, .... 405 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Henry Roberts, M. D., 

H. HuLLISTER, 

L. A. Watres, 

Dr. Silas B. Kobinson, 

Lewis Pughe, - 

The Eiot in Scranton, 

Archbald in 1844, 

Wm. Merrifield, 

E. Merrifield, 



PAOE 

- 411 

- 418 

- 445 

- 459 

- 467 

- 475 

- 491 

- 495 

- 515 



CONTEXTS 



INDIAN HISTORY OF WYOMING. pao« 

Traditions regarding a great tyrant on tiie Susquehanna in HOC — Tlie Five 
Nations controlling the war-paths in the valley in \(>-iO — Tlie extent of 
their sachemship — The Monseys stroll along the Lacliawanna about 1700 — 
Teedyuscung and iiis Delaware tribe ordered to Wyoming — Visit of Count 
Zinzendorf to Wyoming — Dr. Gill's account of his visit — Journey of Conrad 
Weiser to " Woyamocli " in 1754 — "Spies" reported here — The Delawnre 
Indian Village of Asserughney, near Campbell's Ledge — Adjouqva — A fort 
to be built at Adjonqua (mouth of the Lackawanna) at the request of the 
Six Nations in 1756 — Interesting scrap of hisrory 17-29 

INDIAN VILLAGE OF CAPOOSE. 
'Capoose, a contemporarj^ of Teedyuscung, sells liis lands in New Jersey, 
migrates to liie Lackawanna and makes his "smoke" upon its bank — Is 
visited in 1742 by Count Zinzendorf — Hunting and planting grounds at 
("apooae — Alienation of the Delaware and Monsey tribes after Braddock's 
defeat — Gnaddenhutten burned, and Broadhead's plantation on the Dela- 
ware laid waste — ^Indian Congress held in Easlon, in October, 1758 — Log- 
linuses built at Wyoming for Teedyuscung, by Gov. Penn — Major Parson's 
description of ihe Great Sachem while he was "brightening the chain of 
friendship " at Kaston at this time 29-39 

LACKAWANNA RIVER AND VALLEY. 
Iroquois and Delaware diversity of names, now corrupted into Lackawanna — 
Beauty of the stream and vaUey — The union of the Lackawanna with the 
Susquehanna portrayed by the late Mrs. Sigourney 40-43 

WAS WYOMING ONCE A VAST LAKE? 
The Kittatinny Mountain now serrated with gaps, forming a dam for the 
reception of the waters of the Chemung, Chenango, Delaware, and Sus- 
quehanna — Ridges crossing the great rivers — Interesting views of the 
celebrated C. F. Volney, Schoolcraft, and Professor Beck — A singular large 
rock at Pittston out of place — Opinion of the late Hon. Charles Miner and 
Judge Packer — Debris of ocean-life upon the Pocono 2,000 feet above tide 
water — Probable ancient course of the Susquehanna — Veins of coal oblit- 
erated by the agency of water favor the theory — Notches in the Moosic 
range near Scranton 43-49 

WAR-PATILS. 
Prom Asserughney Village to Capoose — One trail lends to the Delaware — 
The other diverges to Oquago (now Windsor, N. Y.) 49-5C 

INDIAN SPRING UPON THE MOOSKJ MOUNTAIX. 
Whites killed by its side in 1778 50-51 



1 CONTENTS. 

INDIAN llELTCS AND FORTIFICATIONS. paor 

Along the Susquehanna — At tlie mouth of the Lackawanna — Upon the 
Moosic — Mound opened at Capoose in 1795 — Another found in Covington 
in 1833, containing vast deposits — P'ormer neglect of scientific men in 
gathering and preserving Indian implements 51-59 

INDIAN APPLE-TREE. 
Orchard at the wigwams of Capoose a century ago — A single tree still pcen 
by the roadside, bringing forth its fruit .59-61 

BEACON FIRES. 
Traces of ancient signal fire-places upon the higher points of the Moosic 
Mountain, used by the red men at the time of their occupancy of the 
Lackawanna Forest GI-63 

SILVKR MINE ON THE LACKAWANNA. 

The whites charged by the Indians with carrying ofif sih'er ore from 
"Wyoming in canoes, in 1766 — Interesting revelation of an old Oneida 
chief — Three salt springs, and three mines, respectively of silver, gold, and 
lead, reported by him to be located within the boundaries of Wyoming. .63-64 

GOLD MINE. 
Bald Mount — A gold mine supposed to be located at its base — Singular 
report of a captive concerning it 64-07 

SALT SPRINGS. 
Their location 67-6S 

LKAD MINE. 
Tuscarora Creek — An item of its local history — A reminiscence of Gen. 
Sullivan's march up tlie Susquehanna into the Indian empire in 1779.. . .CS-70 

GENERAL HISTORY. 
Wyoming, in its general signification, embracing not only the entire Lack- 
awanna Valley, but all the territory within Provincial limits purchased by 
the Yankees — Reports of these lands reaching Connecticut, lead to the 
formation of the Siw^quehanna Company in 1753 — Men who were sent out 
to explore Wyoming are tracked and watched by the Proprietary Govern- 
ment of Pennsylvania — Beauty of the inland settlement — Incipient strife 
for its possession — Its primary purchase of the Indians in 1754 by the 
Susquehanna Company and the Delaware Company — Pennsylvania, cha- 
grined at the success of Yankee diplomacy, attempts to intimidate people 
from New i'higland — Men and women to be shipped to Philadelphia, " meu 
to be imprisoned or compelled to enlist in the Indian War on the Ohio " — 
Cayuga Indians also threaten the Yankees with savage greeting- if they 
settle at Wyoming — The Moravians fraternize with the Indians at Wy- 
alusing — Preaching at " Waioraing and Lecka-we-ke " (Lackawack) in 
1755 — Reward offered for Indian scalps — Cochecton settled — Charles 
Tomson and Christian Frederick Post visit Wyoming and " Lee-haugh- 
hunt" in 1758, by order of Governor Penn — Backsino.sa with 100 war- 
-iors at Lee-liaugh-hunt — Country visited and described in 1758 by two 
Indian interpreters, Moses Titamy and Isaac Hill — Teedyuscung complains 
of the Yankees along the Delaware — Settlement inaugurated in Wyoming 



in 17t)2 — Teedyuscung again complains to tlie Governor, who makes fair 
promises — Fruits of the interview — Murder or expulsion of every white 
person from Wyoming in 1763 — Evident complicity of Pennsylvania 
ofBcials in the massacre — Atrocious butchery of friendly Indians at Lan- 
caster by the whites — John Anderson opens a store at Wyoming in 1760 — 
Original grant of lands to Connecticut and to Wm. Penn — Trenton De- 
cree 70-105 

GENERAL HISTORY (continued). 
Purchase of Wyoming lands by Pennsylvania in 1768 — Preparations of the 
Susquehanna Company to make a permanent settlement upon their pur- 
chase — Occupancy of the territory by Pennsylvanians — Block-house 
erected at the mouth of the "Lamawanack " in 1769 — Settlers taken pris- 
oners — Names of persons in Pittston " fit for mischief" in 1769-1772 
— The Lackawanna paths guarded by Pennymites to prevent the Yan- 
kees from escaping capture — Westmoreland Records-, where are they? — 
Clearings extended up the Lackawanna — Settler's rights voted — Zebulon 
Marcy's cabin — Flints and cartridges carried to Wyoming by the Penny- 
mites to tranquilize the "wrangling" inhabitants — Providence settled — 
General expulsion of the Yankees from the valley by Pennsylvania sol- 
diers 105-121 

ISAAC TRIPP. 
Emigrates to Wyoming, where he plays a prominent part in its history — 
Taken prisoner at Capoose — Ira Tripp 12 1-1. TO 

WESTMORELAND. 
Officially recognized by Connecticut as a portion of its Colony 130-1.'?2 

WALLENPAUPACK SETTLEMENT. 
Within the jurisdiction of Westmoreland — Its history — Fort erected — Alarm 
of the inhabitants — They flee from the savages 132-134 

JAMES LEGGKTT. 
Civilization slowly carried up the Lackawanna — Vote of Congress regarding 
Wyoming difficulties 1 3-4-137 

FIRST WAGON ROAD FROM PITTSTON TO THE DELAWARE. 
Three shiUings per day given men for working upon the road — Importance 
of the thoroughfare 137-139 

MILITARY ORGANIZATION. 
Rigid disciphne essential to the existence of the young settlement — The 
inhabitants compelled to train every fourteen days — Ear-raarks for cattle 
running at large 139-141 

RELIGION, MORALITY AND STILL-HOUSES 
First church erected in the central portion of the vaUey — Bundling — Indians 
forbidden to have whisky because of the murderous agitation it caused 
in the forest — Yet stiU-houses are encouraged by the whites — Eight still 
or beer house? in Providence iu 1798 — Recreation of the inhabitants — A 
committee meet in Wilkes Barre " at six a Clock in yeformoon '" to consider 
the province of ''Liekquor " — Causes of its c-ommercial importance.. . .141-148 



12 CONTENTS. 

PAOR 

MILLS UPON THP: LACKAWANNA 148-149 

DR. JOSEPH SPRAUGE. 
The first physician iu the Lacl<awanQa Valley — "Granny Sprauge '' 150-151 

DR. WILLIAM HOOKER SMITH— OLD FORGE. 
Great surgeon in Gen. Sullivan's Expedition — First purchase of stone-coal 
recorded in Luzerne County, in 1791 — Old Forge as described by the late 
Hon. Charles Miner in a letter to the writer 151-154 

THE SIGNAL TREE 154-155 

THE WYOMING MASSACRE. 
Its cause, character, and consequences — Interesting version of events trans- 
piring immediately before the battle, by a witness still living — But a single 
habitation left standing in the entire Lackawanna Valley — General Sul- 
livan's Expedition in 1779 — " Dried scalps of women and children " found 
in the wigwams by Col. Hartley — Proposition made to hunt the Indians 
with horses and dogs — Extraordinary adventure and escape 155-171 

GENERAL HISTORY— (resumed). 
Connecticut and Pennsylvania renew the struggle for Wyoming with in- 
creased bitterness — The Lackawanna people, turned out of their houses by 
armed bands urged on by land-jobbers, are treated " excessively cruel " — 
Every New England emigrant carried to prison and fed on bread and 
water — Liberated, they return and defy the Pennymites— A bold project 
ot('ol. Ethan Allen, John Franklin, and other shrewd Yankees to form a 
new State out of Wyoming, annihilated by the simple formation of Luzerne 
County in 1786 — The various compromising laws give tranquillity to the 
settlement 177-1 SG 

PROVIDENCE TOWNSHIP AND VILLAGE. 
Tlieir general history — Rich lands of Capoose reluctantly vacated by their 
tawny occupants — Exeter, Providence, and the country north, made into 
one election district in 1774 — Indian apple-tree at Capoose designated as 
" Ye Town Sign-post " — Meeting of settlers under its branches in 1775, 
to draw for lots in Putnam Township (now Tunkhannock) — Taxables of 
Providence Township for the year 1796 — Dr. Silas B. Robinson — The 
"great blow" of 1834 186-205' 

DUN MORE. 
Causes which led to its settlement and expansion — Source of its prosperity — 
John B. Smith 206-211 

HISTORY OF SCRANTON. 
The first log-structure erected iu Deep Hollow (Scranton) — Philip Abbott 
gives expression to the necessities of the farmers at Capoose by the 
erection of a grist-mill upon Roaring Brook in 1788 — Unique character of 
the mill — First bridge across the Lackawanna in 1796 — Hyde Park cleared 
and settled — Dolphs — Dr. Joseph Davis — The Slocums acquire tlie property 
and inaugurate iron-ivorks — Still-iiouses and general prosperity around 
Ca|ioose — The old landmark of Slocum Hollow — Post-alfice established — 
Pri-ividential escape of Mr. Slocum, iu 1808, from a frightful death — Th& 



CONTENTS. 13 

PAOB 

obliteration of the forge and still in 1826, temporarily suspends the life of 
Slocum Hollow — Four piominent gentlemen early agitating the interests 
of the valley — William and Maurice Wurts, Henry W. Drinker, and Wm. 
Meredith — Their plan to resuscitate tlie Hollow — A brighter aspect strug- 
gling its way into the settlement — Primary impulse toward a village in 
Scranton, given by the Drinker railroad project — Wm. Henrj' — Acqui- 
sition of the Slocum Hollow property by Messrs. Scrantons, Grant, and 
Mattes — Inauspicious attempt to start a furnace in Scranton in 1841 — 
Dark period in the history of die iron-works, 1842-3 — Joseph H. and E. C. 
Scranton — Sketch of the different churches in Scranton, from 1841 to the 
present time, with the names of the pastors — Unfaltering energy of Col. 
Scranton — Nail factory built below the falls of Nay-aug — Village of Har- 
rison laid out in the woods — Selden T. Scranton — Failure to get a post- 
office re-estabhshed — The year 184G auspicious in the history of Scran- 
ton — Bankruptcy only averted b}' the Trail — Lively times in the town- 
ship — Dr. Throop builds a cottage near the swamp — Organization of the 
iron company — Difficulty of reaching a market for iron — Post-office again 
established in Scrantonia — Conception of a hicomoiive road westward, by 
Colonel Scranton — Wyoming House and hotels — Tiirifc of Scranton — Its 
newspapers — Description of the ironworks — List of physicians who 
have lived and practiced their profession within tlie city limits of Scranton 
— Its lawyers — Its industrial enterprises — Fouuderies — Machine-shop? — 
Capouse Works — Sash and blind factory — Stove manufactories — Dickson 
Manufacturing Company 21 1-J68 

BLAKKLKY. 
Its name and general history^Second church in the vaUey built within its 
limits 269-273 

YAXKEK WAY OF PULLING A TOOTH 274 

THOMAS SMITH 275 

SETTLEMENT OF ABINGTON. 
The former danger and wildness of Leggett's Gap — Names of settlers.. .275-282 

THE GREAT HUNTER. EIJAS SCOTT. 
His encounter with a bear — Great destruction cf rattlesnakes 2S2-2S4 

"DRINKER'S BEECH "—(JVozj; Covington). 
Its earliest history — 25,000 acres of land purchased by Mr. Drinker in 1788, 
upon the Pocono — Ascending the narrow Lehigh in a batteau to its upper 
waters — Names of the first settlers — Drinker's Turnpike 284-283 

SETTLEMENT OF JEFFERSON. 
Its border traversed by the Yankees — Asa Cobb — .\ wolf killed by Mrs. 
Cobb with a pitchfork — Imaginary shire town and county 288-291 

CHASED BY A PANTHER. 
Perils of the forest thirty years ago 291-293 

DUNNING. 
Pleasant Valley — Barney's Ledge — Hon. A. B Dunning 293-295 



14 CONTENTS. 

CARBONDALE. vac,* 

Rns:<rf>d Islands — Capt. Geo. Rix — The ''big flats" chopped and logged off — 
Unique attire of a woodman — Christopher E.Wilbur — 1802-1814 — Ex- 
plorations by Maurice and Win. Wiirts — Dundaff laid out by Mr. Conyng- 
ham in 1822 — Coal-mine opened — A village emerging from the Carbondale 
glen — First frame-house erected — Sled-loads of coal drawn twenty miles 
to the Paupack 295-300 

LACKAW.\NNA VALLEY IN 1804. 
Klcier John Miller — A general retrospective glance of its inhabitants and its 
appearance as given by him — Zephaniah Knapp — Development of the 
valley 300-310 

FORMATION OF TOWNSHIPS; PRIMITIVE MINISTERS. 
Rev. Jacob Johnson, the first minister in Wyoming — Curious letter — Rev. 
Wm. Bishop — Hyde Park log church — Habits of the people 310-314 

PROPRIETORS' SCHOOL FUND AND PRIMITIVE SCHOOLS. 314-316 
PATHS AND ROADS. 
Journey from Connecticut to Pittston in 1793 — Little Meadows — Visited In 
1793 by Bishop Asbury 317-322 

THE RISE OF METHODISM IN THE VALLEY. 
Anning Owen — Two distinctive impulses given its development — Rev. Dr. 
Geo. Peck — Methodist ministers 322-326 

SMELLING HELL 326-328 

FORMATION OF ANTHRACITE COAL. 

Its vegetable character 328-329 

ORGANIC REMAINS FOUND IN THE COAL STRATA, 
Their abundance in the Lackawanna Valley 329-331 

MINERALS AND MINING 331-332 

COAL LANDS FIFTY YEARS AGO. 
Worthlessncss of stune-coa,\ in Slocum Hollow fifty years ago 332-333 

THE DISCOVERY AND INTRODUCTION INTO USE OF ANTHRA- 
CITE COAL. 

General prejudice against its use — Difficulty of giving coal away, and the 
danger of attempting to sell it — Hon. Charles Miner — Jacob Cist — Triuniplis 
of stone-coal — Used up the Lackawanna as a fuel in 1812 — Details of in- 
terest 333-343 

WILLIAM AND MAURICE WURTS. 
Their explorations in the coal-fields of the Lackawanna — A trivial incident 
favors Wm. Wurts in purchasing the wild lands where Carbondale now 
stands — Hon. Paul S. Preston — First load of coal ever drawn from the 
Lackavvanna shipwrecked in the turbid waters of Jones's Creek — New York 
and the Lackawanna Valley linked together by the social genius of canal, 
railroad, and river — Delaware and Hudson Canal Compan)' — Tiie first loco- 
motive-engine in America runs a short distance from Honesdale, in 1828 — 
Achievements of this great '.-ompany — Thos. Dickson 343-363 



CONTENTS. 15 

FALLING IN OF THE CARBONDALE MINES. pagk 

Appalling tomb — One mile of slato and rock between tlie miners and the 
outer world 363-3r,7 

EARLIEST MAIL ROUTE THROUGH THE VALLEY. 
Letter carried to Toedyuscuiig in 1 762 367-369 

THE PENNSYLVANIA COAL COMPANY. 
The entrance of this gravity coal-road into tlie valley vehemently opposed 
by iatriguing meu — Its final success 369-372 

FROM PITTSTON TO HAWLEY. 
Fine views from Cobb Mountain — Local history — Cobb's Gap. . . 372-379 

DELAWARE, LACKAWANNA, AND WESTERN RAILROAD. 
Historical summary of the Susquehanna and Delaware Canal and Railroad 
Company — The Leggett's Gap Railroad ; now merged into the Delaware, 
Lackawanna, and Western Railroad — A brief detail of the early struggles 
of energetic men to connect the Laclcawanna with the Delaware — Henry 
W. Drinker, William Henry, Col. Geo. W. Scranton, John Brisbin, Samuel 
Sloan 379-393 

LACKAWANNA AND BLOOMSBURG RAILROAD, 
dossing Wyoming battle-grounds — Wyoming scenery — Jas. Archibald.. .393-396 

SKETCH OF THl-; EARLY HISTORY OP THE LEHIGH AND 
SUSQUEHANNA RAILROAD. 

Indian civili/.ers at Gnaddenhutten (now Weissport) in 174R — Casual dis- 
covery of anthracite near Maucii Chunk, gives foetal life to the Lehigh Coal 
and Navigation Company, and tames the wild waters of the Lehigh — 
Slackwater navigation — The jealous interest of Wyoming, represented by 
Hon. Andrew Beaumont, inimical to the Lehigh Coal and Navigation 
Company — Jealousies allayed and harmony promoted by the company 
agreeing to build a gravity railroad over the mountain from White Haven 
to Wilkes Barre — Appalling flood upon the Lehigh in 18G2 — Locomotives 
descend from the mount into Wyoming — Grandeur of the mountain view 
— John Leisenring — John P. Ilsley 39G-403 

HON. GEORGE W. SCRANTON. 
A sketch of his life, and an estimate of his moral character, by Rev. Dr. 
Peck 403-410 

LEHIGH VALLEY RAILROAD. 
The high ridge separating the Lehigh from the Lackawanna, receives another 
diadem of iron — Hon. Asa Packer — The commercial greatness and impor- 
tance of this thoroughfare, fraternizing with the Delaware, Lehigh, and 
upper Susquehanna 410-41 7 



Hi 



APPENDIX. 

I. PAGE 

Indian relic controversy — Wyoming fair 419-442 

II. 

The Lackawanna Valley fifty years ago and now 44:5 

The churches of Scranton 444 

Our school system 448 

Health of the valley 449 

Our charities — The Lackawanna and Moses Taylor Hospitals 449 

Deaf and Dumb Institution 45(t 

Home of the Friendless 451 

Board of Trade 452 

Our water 452 

The lakes of the county 45:i 

Precipices 453 

Building development 454 

Fire department 455 

Mayors and the judiciary 455 

Our physicians 458 

The Delaware and Hudson Canal Company 45S 

Coal waste and coal-breakers 4(52 

Henry Roberts, M.D 465 

Hon. Lewis Pughe 4(>6 

The strikes 470 

The Thirteenth Regiment 477 

An industrial point 479 

The industries of Scranton — The Dickson Manufacturing Company 4S0 

Scranton Brass- and File-Works 484 

Scranton City Foundry 4S4 

Planing-mills — Providence 4S5 

Scranton Stove- Works 485 

(Jreen Ridge 486 

Scranton Glass Company 487 

Green Ridge Iron-AVorks 487 

Up the valley — Carbondale 488 

Soldiers' Monument — Van Bergen <fc Co. 's Works H89 

Jermyn — Jermyn CotBn- and Casket- Works — Moosic Powder- Woiks 490 

Archbald in 1844 491 

Knitting-Factory 492 

Winton 4 92 

Peckville 49:! 

Olyphant 49.S 

Price — Dickson City 494 

The inception of Lackawanna County (97 

Laying of the Corner-Stone 501 

Speech of Alfred Hand 502 

General History, by E. Merrifield 507 

The Banquet: Gentlemen present — Speeches of Judge Woodward, Judge Jessup, 
Colonel Boies, J. F. Connolly, A. B. Dunning, W. AV. Scranton, J. E. Barrett, 
E. P. Kingsbury, T. H. Dale, R. H. McKune, F. J. Fitzsimmons, Chas. Scran- 
ton, J. J. Albright, John Jermyn, I.^aac C. Price 511-547 

The Scranton Poor-House 64S 



HISTORY OF THE LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 



INDIAN HISTORY. 

The Indian's side of liistory can never be written, be- 
cause traditions running back through centuries, and 
cherished only by the red man whom they concerned, 
peiished with tlie race that knew them. We shall read 
of licmes reddened by the tomahawk or charred by the 
fagot, but not of the wrongs urging the wild man to 
defend the spot where his wigwam stood. When the 
plain cabins of the Dutch first rose on the banks of tlie 
Hudson, all the Indians "on the Connecticut, Hudson, 
Delaware, and Susquehanna rivers, were in subjugation to 
tlie Five Nations,"^ whose capital near the placid waters 
<'f the Onondaga Lakes, lay but a day's walk or two from 
the head -springs of the Lackawanna. 

In 1827, Cusick published traditions of the Tuscaroras 
running from " twenty -five hundred winters before Colum- 
bus's discovery of America" down to the days of Ma- 
homet. " About the time of Mahomet's career in 602, a 
great Tyrant arose on the Kaunaseh, now Susquehanna 
ilivei", wlio waged war with the surrounding nations, from 
which it appears that while in Africa, Europe, and Asia 
revolution succeeded revolution, empires rose on the 
luius of empires, that in America the same scenes were 
acting on as great a scale — cultivated regions, populous 
cities and towns, were reduced to a wilderness, as in the 
other countries."^ 

' Sraitli's History of Xew YorK. "American Antiquities, sec. ed., p. 349. 

2 



18 HISTOKY OF THE 

The Mohawks, asserting sovereignty over the proud 
Pequots and Narragan setts, numbering many hundred 
warriors, and exacting tribute from all the New England 
tribes as late as the sixteenth century, claimed the wildei- 
ness from the Connecticut to Wyoming. Massasoit, the 
ever warm friend of the Pilgrims, and Ids son Philip, 
afterward celebrated as King Philip, had frequent con- 
flicts with this haughty, powerful tribe. The Dutch gave 
tliem the name of Maquos} The French, between whom 
war was almost perpetual, called them Iroquois.^ 

When Captain John Smith was carried prisoner to the 
castle of Powhatan, in 1607, he learned that the " Sas- 
que-sah-ha-noughs" (Susquehanna Indians), living upon 
the river by this name, "are a Gyant like people and are 
thus atyred," giving in his work a graphic illustration of 
a chief "atyred" in all the gorgeous style of the wild 
man. 

The Confederation known as the Six Nations, foi-nx^d 
by the union of Mohawks, Senecas, Onondagos, Oneidas, 
Cayugas, and the Tuscaroras, was not only formidable in 
the number of its warriors, but so democratic in the char- 
acter of its organization, and so terrible in the exercise of 
its power, that few new settlements, made along the fron- 
tier, acquired either growth or age without harm or appre- 
hension. Its power was absolute and unquestioned ; its 
government a limited monarchy. This was vested in a 
Great Sachem or Chief, directed by a Council of Braves 
and aged warriors noted for wisdom and bravery. Its 
ever-burning Council Fire blazed from the plains of 

' This word, derived from moho. signifies to eat. — Roger Williams. Or Mo- 
hawks signifies cannibals or man-eaters, among other tribes of Indians. — Trum- 
bull, Q. S., pp. 1-4 ; Hutchinson, vol. i., p. 405. This tribe was situated along the 
Mohawk, and from it took its name, and was one of the powerful Five Nations 
who in 1713 were joined by the Tuskaroras, a large tribe from North Carolina, 
and thence known by the name of Six Nations. — Williamson's North Carolina, 
vol. i., p. 202. Hon. De Witt Clinton, in N. Y. Hist. Soc. Col., vol. ii., p. 48, says 
that the Tuskaroras joined the other nations in 1712. 

' X. Y. Hist. Col., vol. ii., p. 44. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 19 

Oh-na-qu-go, while the edicts and wislies of the assem- 
bled sachems, carried to Manhattan's shore by runners, 
were known and respected even in the far-off region of 
the magnolia and palmetto. With a dialect whose strange 
intonations ])ewildered the ear of the white man, and 
whose tongue, destitute of labials, was so diverse and 
€orrupted from the parent language, that many of the 
tribes living on the same stream could only converse 
through an interpreter ;^ with neither books nor charts, 
with no history but the wigwam's lore, no guide but the 
moon's gray twilight, no valley was sunk too far away in 
the mountains, no stream stretched its tranquil length 
through grounds too remote from the war-path to escape 
the notice of men clad in skins, who occupied and gave 
them a name. 

Charles Miner, in his really unequaled and chai'ming 
History of Wyoming^ remarks, with truth, that, "in un- 
raveling the tangled web of Indian history, we found our- 
selves in the outset extremely embarrassed, especially 
when reading the pages of Heckewelder and other writers 
of the United Brethren. The removal of tribes or parts 
of tiibes to the valley ; their remaining a brief })eriod and 
then emigrating to some other place, without any apparent 
motive founded in personal convenience, consistency, or 
wisdom, perplexed us exceedingly, as we doubt not it has 
others," 

The forest between the Hudson and Lake Huron con- 
stituted the sachemship of the Iroquois, or Five Nations, 
whose "smokes" ascended from the mountains of Ver- 
mont to the head-waters of the Delaware, Susquelianna, 
and tlie Ohio. The number of their warriors in 1600 was 
estimated by Chalmers to have been twenty-two huiidivd, 
while Bancroft puts the figure at ten thousand. Their 
language, spoken by the Pequods, the Narragansetts, the 
Mohawks, and Delawares, was the mother-tongue that 

' Jefferson. 



20 HISTORY OF THE 

welcomed tlie Pilgrims^ and plead for Smith on tlieCliick- 
ahominy, through the fervid lips of Pocahontas. Be- 
tween the Delaware and the Susquehanna, in the narrow, 
green plateau of the Lackawanna, dwelt a division of the 
Lenni-Lenape — the Minsi or Monsey clan, which, like the 
tribes at AVyoming, stripped of their glory by the Iro- 
quois, melted away into other tribes strolling through the 
wilderness as conquerors. The Senecas and Oneidas, 
two of the radest, most vindictive, as well as energetic 
members of the confederated Nations, took the most 
prominent part in the affairs of Wyoming. Their villages 
were strung around the lesser lakes feeding Ontario, 
while their seat of government was located at Onondaga, 
now Syracuse, 

"The Onondagos," writes Miner, "were eminent as 
counselors, distinguished for eloquence, perhaps revered, 
like the tribe of Levi, as the priesthood of the confedera- 
cy, to whose care was committed the keeping or kindling 
the sacred fire around Avhich their most solemn delibeia- 
tions were held." After the Sene*"as and Oneidas, whose 
camp-tires gave a savage cheer to Wyoming as early as 
1640,- had removed to the land of the Iroquois, feebler 
tribes, w^hicli had lost favor with tlie civil sachems or the 
great war chiefs, were concentrated in this lovely region 
under the immediate eye and reach of royal prerogative. 

Thus came the ShaAvnees from southern everglades, 
whose names are yet affixed to the lower portion of 
Wyoming Valley, and thus the Nanticokes, in 1748, came 
from the Chesakawon on the Chesapeake, and found 
shelter on the Susquehanna until their removal to Onon- 
daga in 1755. The Delawares, of whom Teedyuscung 
was long the leading sachem, playing an important part 
in the history of AVyoming, taunted as women and treated 
as vassals, were ordered by the Six Nations, in the most 
imi^erious manner, into this valle}^ in 1742. 

' Bancroft. ' Miuer. 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 21 

At a great Council held at Philadelphia, July 12, 1742, 
where over two hundred warriors were assembled to talk 
with the Governor of Pennsylvania, in regard to the 
transgressions of the Delawares, who had sold lands on 
the river Delaware fifty years before, and who had re- 
fused to remove from the same, Canassategoe addressed 
them thus : — 

"Cousins, you ought to be taken by the hair of your 
head and shak'd severely till you recover your senses 
and become sober. Our Brother Onas"' case is very just 
and plain and his Intentions to preserve friendship ; on 
the other Hand your Cause is bad, your Heart far from 
being upright, and you are maliciously bent to break the 
Chain of friendship with our Brother Onas. But how 
came you to take upon you to Sell Land at all? We 
conquered You, we made Women of you ; you know you 
are Women, and can no more sell Land tlian Women. 
You have been furnished with Cloaths and Meat and 
Drink by the Goods paid you for it, and now You want 
it again like Children as you are. Did you ever tell Us 
that you had sold this Land in the Dark '. did we ever 
receive any Part, even the Value of a Pipe Shank, from 
you for it ? You have told Us a Blind Story that you 
sent a Messenger to Us to infoi'm Us of the Sale, but he 
never came amongst Us, nor we never heard any thing 
about it. This is acting in the Dark, and very different 
from the Conduct our Six Nations observe in tlieir Sales 
of Land. On such Occasions they give Publick Notice 
and invite all the Indians of their united Nations, and 
give them a share of the Presents they i-eceive for their 
Lands. This is the behaviour of the wise United Na- 
tions, but we find you are none of our Blood. Y^ou Act a 
dishonest part not only in this but in other Matters. Y^our 
Ears are ever Open to Slanderous Reports about our 



' Peun received from the Indians the name of Onas — i. e., quill or pen, from 
the fact that he governed by these instead of guns. 



22 HIbTOUY OF THE 

Brethren. For all these we charge You to remove i7i- 
stantly. We don't give you the liberty to think about it. 
You are Women ; take the Advice of a AVise Man and 
remove immediately. You may return to the other side 
of the Delaware where you came from, but we don't know 
whether Considering how you have demean' d yourselves, 
you will be permitted to live there, or whether you have 
not swallowed that Land down your Throats as well as 
the Land on this side. We, therefore. Assign you two 
Places to go to — either to Wyomin or ShamoJcin. You 
may go to either of these Places, and then we shall have 
you more under our Eye, and shall see how You behave. 
Don't deliberate, but remove away and take this Belt of 
Wampum,"^ 

This peremptory command, given in such a haughty 
and offensive manner, admitting of no evasion or appeal, 
was obeyed b}' the Delawares, who at once repaired to 
the Wyoming hunting-grounds. "Such," says Chap- 
man, "was the origin of the Indian town of Wyoming. 
Soon alter the arrival of the Delawares, and dui-ing tlie 
same season (the summer of 1742), a distinguished for- 
eigner. Count Zinzendorf, of Saxony, arrived in the Valley 
on a religious mission to the Indians. This nobleman is 
believed to have been the lirst white person that ever 
visited AVyoming. He was the reviver of the ancient 
church of the United Brethren, and had given protection 
in his dominions to the persecuted Protestants who had 
emigrated from Moravia, thence taking the name of 3Io 
ravians, and who, two years before, had made their 
first settlement in Pennsylvania. 

"Upon his arrival in America, Count Zinzendorf mani- 
fested a great anxiety to have the Gospel preached to the 
Indians ; and although he had heard much of the ferocity 
of the Shawanese, formed a resolution to visit them. 
With this view he repaired to Tulpehoclien^ the residence 

1 Col. Rec, vol. iv., pp. 579-SO. 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 23 

of Conrad Weiser, a celebrated interpreter and Indian 
agent for the Government, whom he wished to engage 
in the cause, and to accompany him to thn Shawanese 
town. 

" Weiser was too much occupied in business to go 
immediately to Wyoming, but he i'urnislied the Count 
with letters to a missionary of the name of Mack, and 
the latter, accompanied by his wife, who could speak the 
Indian language, proceeded immediately with Zinzendorf 
on the projected mission. 

" The Shawanese appeared to be alarmed on the arrival 
of the strangers, who pitched their tents on the banks of 
the river a little below the town, and a council of the 
chiefs having assembled, the declared purpose of Zinzen- 
dorf was deliberately considered. To these unlettered 
children of the wilderness, it appeared altogether improb- 
able that a stranger should have braved the dangers of a 
boisterous ocean, three thousand miles broad, for the sole 
purpose of instructing them in the means of obtaining 
happiness after death, and that, too, without requiring 
any compensation for his tiouble and expense ; and as 
they had observed tiie anxiety of the white people to 
purcliase land of the Indians, they naturally concluded 
that the real object of Zinzendorf was either to procure 
from them the lands at Wyoming for his own use, to 
search for hidden treasures, or to examine the country 
with a view to future conquests. It was accordingly re- 
solved to assassinate him, and to do it privately, lest the 
knowledge of the transaction should produce a war with 
the English, who were settling the country below the 
mountains. 

" Zinzendorf was alone in his tent, seated upon a bun- 
dle of dry weeds, which composed his bed, and engaged 
in writing, when the assassins approached to execute 
their bloody commission. It was night, and the cool air 
of September had rendered a small fire necessary to his 
comfort and convenience. A curtain foinied of a blanket 



24 HISTORY OF THE 

and hung upon pins, was the only guard to the entrance 
of his tent. 

"The heat of his fire had aroused a large rattlesnake 
which lay in the weeds not far from it ; and the reptile, 
to enjoy it more effectually, crawled slowly into the tent, 
and passed over one of his legs undiscovered. "Without, 
all was still and quiet, except the gentle marmur of the 
liver at the rapids about a mile below. At this moment 
the Indians softly approached the door of his tent, and 
slightly removed the curtain, contemplated the venerable 
man, too deeply engaged in the subject of his thoughts 
to notice either their approach, or the snake which lay ex- 
tended before him. At a sight like this, even the heart of 
a savage shrunk from the idea of committing so horrid an 
act, and quitting the spot, they hastily returned to the 
town, and informed their companions that the Oreat 
Spirit j^rotected the white man, for they had found him 
with no door but a blanket, and had seen a large rattle- 
snake crawl over his legs without attempting to injure 
liini. This circumstance, together with the arrival soon 
afterward of Conrad Weiser, procured Zinzendoif the 
friendsliip and confidence of the Indians, and probably 
contributed essentially toward inducing many of them, 
at a subsequent period, to embrace the Christian reli- 
gion. 

"TIk' Count having spent twenty days at AVyoming 
i-etuined to Bethlehem, a town then building by his 
Christian brethren on the north bank of the Lehigh, 
about eleven miles from its junction with the Dela- 
ware.''^ 

In the recently published life of Count Zinzendorf, by 
Dr. Gill, of London, this visit, as well as the character 
of the Indians at Wyoming, are thus described. "The 
Count as missionary to give these Indians a ])rarti cable 
insight into the religion lie came to teach, by simply lead- 

' Miner's Vryoming, p. M9. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. '25 

iiig a Christian life amongst them, and when favorable 
impressions had thus been made and inquiry was excited, 
he preached the leading truths of the gospel, taking care, 
not to put more things into their heads than their hearts 
could lay hold of. His mode of approaching them was 
carefully adapted to their distinctive peculiarities ; his 
last tour, in the autumn of 1742, after crossing the primeval 
forest, he pitched his tent a short distance from 'Wayo- 
mick ' the capital of the Shawanos, and remained there 
three weeks, observing the habits of the people, and con- 
versing with them, so as to make himself familiar with 
their ideas, before he proceeded more directly with the 
special object of his mission. He found this tribe to be one 
of the most corrupt and most opposed to the truth. They 
soon concerted violent measures to get rid of him, and 
would have killed him and his companions, but that his 
interpreter, in w^hose absence tlie murder \vas to have 
been committed, returned unexpectedly and discovered 
the plot. Such was the form in which these poor sav- 
ages manifested their hatred to a man whose motives 
they could not comprehend, and whom they looked upon 
as an intruder." 

When Conrad Weiser, a celebrated Indian inteipietei-, 
visited Wyoming in 1754, he reported that he found but 
three Indian towns between Shamokin and Wyoming— 
Os-k )-ha-ny, Nis-ki-beck-on (Nescopeck), and Woya- 
mock.^ He also reported that the Indians on the Susque- 
hanna had seen some of the New England men that came 
"as spies to Woyamock last fall, and they saw them 
making draughts of the land and rivers."- The Dehi- 
wares had built '' Woyamock, and tw^elve miles higher U]> 
the river a town called Asserughney. where about twenty 
Indian Dela wares, all molently against the English"^ 
were found at this time. 

This village stood between the bold preci})ice, famed 

iCol. Rec, vol. vi., p. 35. "Ibid. 'Ibid, p. G6. 



2<> 



HISTOKY OF THK 



the world over as CampbelV s Ledge, and tlie month of 
the Lackawanna, on the eastern bank of the Susi]ue- 




hanna. ^ This, like all their villages, was small, as hunt- 

' Tachneckdorus, a fiiendl}' Delaware chief, informed the Governor of Pennsjl- 



LACKAWANNA VAF.LKY. 27 

iiig and fishing were the main sources of supporting the 
})opulation, naturally averse to labor. This high ledge, 
affording an uninterrupted look-out over the valley be- 
low, was used by the Indians not only thus to guard 
their wigwams, nestled along the river, but to kindle their 
beacon-fires at the evening or midnight hour, as they were 
Avont to be kindled on the Scottish highlands in the days 
of Wallace and Bruce, to show those who watched the 
portentous flame the presence of danger, or signal the 
movements of an enemy. 

While Asserughney was the Indian name of the town, 
Adjouqua was applied to the lower portion of the Lack- 
awanna Valley. This castle, or encampment, was the 
upper one of the Delawares in Wyoming. It was a point 
of importance because of its favorable location for trading 
purposes. The great wai'-path from the inland lakes of 
New York to Wyoming and the South, and the trail down 
the Lackawanna from the Minisink homes on the Dela- 
ware, passed thi-ough it. Fur-parties, and dusky chiefs, 
with their captives, alike followed the solitude of its pas- 
sage tlirough these true Indian lands. 

Capoose village, up the shallow Lackawanna, eight 
miles from Assf^rughney, was built a few years previous 
to tliis, and occupied by the Monseys, who, like the more 
numerous Delawares, paid tribute to the Tartars of the 
western world at Onondaga. These villages w<-re con- 
structed in piimitive fashion, from green bark, boughs, 
and weeds. As the war-paths passed through them, they 

vania in Febninrv, 175(5, -'that Ne^hcopeckon is deserted upon a rumor that pre- 
vailed among them of j'our coming up wiih a large number of men to cut them 
oflf, and they, the Delawares, fled to Assarockney and higlier up, having there a 
big hill on one side and the Sasquehannah on the other side of the present town." 
Colonial Records, vol. vii., p. 52. The number of warriors at .\sserughney was 
estunated at two hundred. 

In an old map of the country of the Six Nations, made by Guy Johnson in 1771, 
and found in the Documentary History of New York, vol. iv.. p. 1091, a stream 
is put down in the place of the Lackawanna as Mac-ha-pon-da creek. Whether 
it had reference to Meshoppen or Lackawanna is difficult to determine from tlie 
map; probably tlie former. 



28 HISTORY OF THE 

were alike threatened by nomadic tribes, espousing the 
interests of the English or the French. This led the Six 
Nations, in June, 1756, to depute Og-ha-gha-cJ islia, a 
chief of the Iroquois, living on the north branch of the 
Susquehanna, to ask the Provincial Council of Pennsyl- 
vania to build a fort at the mouth of the Lackawanna. 
At a Conference held at the camp at Armstrong's, June 
10, 1756, between Col. William Claphan and Og-ha-gha- 
disha, the chief thus addressed the colonel : — 

"My Brother: The Iroquois have sent me as a repre- 
sentative of the whole nation to treat with you (producing 
a belt of wampum), and will ratify all my contracts. 
Brother: they agreed to your building a fort at Shamo- 
kin, but are desirous that you should also build a fort 
three days' journey in a canoe higher up the Nortli 
Branch in their country, at a place called Adjouquay, 
and this belt of wampum is to clear the road to that 
])iace. Brother: If you agree to my proposal in behalf 
of ni}^ nation, I will return and immediately collect our 
Avhole force to be employed in protecting your people 
Avliile you are building a fort in our country at Adiou- 
quay, where there is a good situation and tine soil at the 
entrance of a deep cretdc on a level plain five miles ex- 
tending, and clear of woods. Adjouqua is fourteen miles 
above Wioming,^ and old women may carry a heavy pack 
of skins from thence to the Minisink and return to Ad- 
jouqua in two nights. My Brother : The Land is troubled, 
and you may justly apprehend danger, but if you grant 
our request we will be together, and if any danger liap- 
])ens to 3'ou, we will share it with you. My Brother 
(laying down a belt of wampum folded in the middle) : 



' No allusion has ever been made to Aljouquay by Wyoming historians. As- 
sarughney and Adjouquay are botli spoken of by different Indians as being ten, 
uvelve, and fourteen miles above Wyoming. This apparent discrepancy arose, 
not from the fact that miles were measured by loalkts, but that Wyoming was 
located either at the Delaware, Shawnees, or Xanticoke towns, all crouched along 
the river hetow the present location of Wilkes Barre. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 29 

this describes your patli to Shamokin ; iiiifolding the belt 
and extending it to its full length, this is your road to 
Adjouquay.'" Governor Morris thanked the chief for 
his kind speech, and in his reply said : " Brother : I am 
desired to build another fort fourteen miles above Wio- 
ming, at a place called Adjouquay. I have agreed to this 
request, and am taking measures to do it out hand, about 
which I shall want to consult you." - 

A line of forts, some twenty miles apart, stretched 
along the frontier from the Potomac to the Delaware in 
1756-58. Stroudsburg, the pretty shire town of the 
county of Monroe, although taking its name from Colonel 
Jacob Stroud, who commanded Fort Penn at this point 
during the Revolutionary war, received a definite step 
toward a settlement from the presence of one of the most 
eastern of these outposts, erected in 1757— Fort Hamilton. 

IXDIAN VILLAGE OF CAPOOSE. — TEEDYUSCUNG. 

The low, ricli bottom on the western bordei' of the 
Lackawanna, between Providence and Scj-antoiL was 
known to the earliest explorers as " Capoose Meadow"— 
a name probably given to perpetuate tlie memory of a 
civil chief, Capoose, excelling in the art of agriculture and 
peace. The Monseys, or a prominent branch of tliat tribe, 
left the Minisink and diffused through the Lackawanna 
Valley, as early as any authentic history comes down to 
the white man from the Lenni-Lenapes. As this village- 
was visited in 1742 by Count Zinzendorf, who named the 
county Saint Anthony's Wilderness,' its date and occu- 
pancy must have been considerably anterior to this. This 
tribe, rudely gashing the margin of the Lackawanna for 
the reception of maize as early as 1700, appears originally 
to have been an off-shoot of the Delawares. Their liistoi-'v 



' CoL Rec, vol. vii., pp. 157-8. 'Ibid, p. 159. 

» Evens' Map of 1747, in Ebling's History of Pennsylvania. 



30 HISTORY OF THE 

and habits are so assimilated as to indicate a common 
origin. Botli spoke the Algonquin language of the Iro- 
quois — a language abounding in vowels and fertile in 
dialect — obeyed laws emanating from the same source, 
and both are intimately associated in colonial and pro- 
vincial history. The Monseys, like every tribe, scattered 
along the Susquehanna and its branches, acknowledged 
the supremacy of the Onondaga head, and were so noma- 
dic in their habits, that the Pennsylvania archives often 
refer to Mousey warriors from Wickalousin (Wyalusing), 
Chokonot (Cochecton), and from many other places along 
the rivers of the Province. When the Delawares moved 
to Ohio, the Monseys accompanied them, and ultimately 
dissolved into that conquered nation. Vast tracts of land 
was claimed by the Monseys and Delawares, who jointly 
occupied New Jersey, the Schuylkill Basin, and the licli 
valley of the Delaware in 1646. ^ January 30, 1743, 
Capoose gave to Moses Totomy, a Delaware of some local 
influence, power of attorney- to sell these lands to tlie 
whites, or transact any other business with tlie Govern- 
ment relating to lands chiimed by him. The greater 
portion of these domains were thus sold by Capoose to 
Governor Penn in October, 1758. Thus the upper border 
of Adjourqiiay, exquisite in the beauty of woods veined 
with springs and creeks, whose waters ran to t^e sea 
unruffled save by rock or deer, rich in game and fish, easy 
of conquest, was selected by Capoose for his home after 
the English began to encroach upon forest-lands east of 
the Hudson. The hunting-grounds of Capoose extended 
down the Lackawanna and Nay-aug, and up the river to 
its very head-waters. The Scranton race-course is within 
the ancient border of Capoose ; the Diamond mines open 
upon its western border. 

Their burial-place, long since smoothed down by the 
plow, lay on the high bank of the Lackawanna, a quarter 

' Bancroft. " Peunsylvania Archives, 1758, p. 341. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 



31 



of a mile above their town, where vast quantities of relics 
liave been found heretofore by the antiquarian. Although 
the Avhole valley was familiar with the tawny cabin dwell- 




ers, long before the blankness of their lives were marked 
by the intrusion of the pale-face, ignorant even of the 
topography of the country, this clearing oi- meadow of 



32 IIISTOKY OF THE 

Capoose, was the main one found in the valley by the 
pioneer, where the wigwam stood on a cultivated spot. 
And even here, as the men were too la/y to [)lant the corn, 
or secure the scanty harvest, the labor fell upon the more 
submissive squaws. The Indian artisans were skilled in 
the art of manufacturing, from flint and stone, implements 
for agriculture and the chase, elegant arrow-heads and 
spear points ; the rude pebble, and sometimes the rai-er 
silex were shaped into pipes and ornaments of symbolic 
meaning, while bowls were fashioned from dried clay with 
an ingenuity never equaled by the white man within the 
stone period. While their war-path ran along under the 
sycamore and vine fringing the bank of the Lackawanna, 
the waters of the stream, sometimes wild in its uprisings, 
opened a favorite highway for their canoes descending 
with the silent w^arriors to the plains of Wyoming. 

In accordance w^ith the usual habit pi-acticed by tiie 
Indians, of annually burning over their huntiiig-giounds 
with a vieAv of destroying the smaller trees in the way of 
securing game, there was remaining, when the whites ap- 
peared, little underbrush to interfere in the chase around 
Capoose, now known as Tripp's Flats. The forest around 
it was stocked with game. The pheasant whirred from 
the brake in conscious security, the duck rode in the 
stream as if it were its own, the rabbit squatted in the 
laurel in diowsy attitude, the moose and elk stood among 
the pines or thundered through them like the tread of 
cavalry ; the deer browsed daintly upon the juicy leaf, 
whih.' the Moosic slope, unshorn of its foliage, offered to 
the panther and bear but little shield from the quick 
poised arrow of the woodsman. The beaver, muskrat, and 
otter, enlivened the stream in whose waters fish swam in 
schools. Perch, pike, and even shad, filled the Lacka- 
wanna, while every joyous brook from the mountain was 
spotted with tiout. Hooks, constructed with singular 
ingenuity from bone, or nets woven from the inner bark 
of trees, or even the stone-tipped spear. whi(di thev threw 



LACKAWANNA VALLICY. 33 

with admirable adroitness at a distance of thirty feet, 
while the fish were moving rapidly, never failed to sup- 
ply the wigwam with food. 

Capoose himself was a contemporary of Teedyusciing 
of the Delawares, but so diverse in chaj-acter and temper- 
ament, that while the latter was ambitious for distinction, 
and prominent in council gatherings, where he Jointly 
looked after the interests of the Monseys and his own 
tribe, Capoose, undecked with the emblems of war, lived 
in amity Avith the whites, encouraged the culture of the 
soil, and left behind him a name untarnished with either 
blood or carnage. 

Long after the occupancy of this region by Capoose, 
the Moravians indented a settlement in the Province above 
the Blue Mountain. On the wild wateis of the Ma-ha- 
noy, where it joins the Lehigh, eighteen miles above 
Bethlehem, these Indian civilizers encamped in 1743. 
" Except the erection of the fort,'' says Miner, " this was 
the first settlement in a northeast direction in Pennsyl- 
vania, above the Kittatinny Ridge or Blue Mountain/' 
This was about forty miles from Wyoming, and the only 
road intervening was the narrow path of the wai-rior. 

Easton, the shire-town of Northampton County, admir- 
ably located for agricultural purposes or trafiic with tlie 
men w^ho patrolled the forest, laid out for a village in 
1750, and Lower Smithfield, on the Delaware, above the 
present village of Stroudsburg, had but a few clearings 
opened in 1751, occupied by Charles Broadhead, Samuel 
Dupue, John McMichael, John Carmeckle, John Ander- 
son, James Tidd, Job Bakehoin, and Henry Dysert. 
These were held under proprietory auspices. No attempt 
had yet been made to settle Wyoming or LackaAvanna. 
The hunter and trapper coveting furs, more bold than the 
emigrant, unwilling to risk his life for a doubtful home, 
had ventured hither, but the French and Indian wars of 
this period arrested explorations, and sent alarm into 
every inland settlement within the Province. 



o4: HISTORY OF THE 

Braddock's defeat in 1755, disastrous especially to 
western Pennsylvania, illuminated the whole frontier 
with burning cabins. The French, promisino; large re- 
wards for scalps to those they assured should again be 
reinstated upon lands already sold the English, readily 
won over the red-men, of whom tliirty were reported at 
Wyoming, November 9, 1755, and "much larger bodies 
up the river and branches.'" ^ 

The Indians, never slumbering, but ever ready to sway 
to and fro, as success alternated with either party, in- 
dulging in the hope that the English might be expelled 
from their former plains, entered into an alliance with the 
French with extraordinary zeal and readiness. Gnadden- 
liutten was burned in 1755 by "a band of Indians coming 
from Wyoming,"- and the plantations of Mr. Broadhead, 
some twenty-five or thirty miles from Bethleliem, of 
Frederick Heath on Pocho Poclito Creek, and Mr. Calvers, 
McMichael's, and "houses and families thereabouts were 
attacked by the Indians at daylight and burnt down by 
them."^ Mr. Broadhead estimated the number of war- 
riors at two hundred. This attack upon the settlement 
was marked by the same atrocity characterizing much of 
the border warfare.^ As all the Susquehanna and Lacka- 
wanna Indians except the Mousey s were disposed for 
peace in the spring of 1757, '^ Mr. Miner concludes that 
the Oneidas and Senekas from the lakes formed the war 
party. Hostilities had been suspended against tlie Dela- 
wares living "on the east side of the northeast biancli 
of the Susquehanna,"" when they were complained of 
as being the most troublesome, and of whom Conrad 
Weiser reported in December, 1755, as being alienated 
from the English and living at Schantowano (Wayomack) 
in a town called Nescopeckon. 

Had not the Wyoming Indians caught the war spirit 



' Col. Rec, vol. vi., p. 752. ' Christian Library. ' Col. Rec, vol. vi., p. "752. 
* Ibid., p. 759. ' Ibid., p. 506. ' Pennsylvania Archives, 17-tS-175i;, p. 663. 



LACKAWANNA VALI.KY. S5 

at the war-dance, there certain]}' would have been no 
necessity for desiring peace on one side, or tlic sus- 
pension of liostilities on the other. Instead of being 
the above-named tribes ak)ne, it is probable that the 
Delawares, exasperated by the sale of Wj^oming lands to 
Connecticut people, or the Monseys, not yet desiring p(\ice', 
issuing from the wigwams of Capoose, wei-e jointly guilty 
of this niurdeious breach of good faith toward the United 
Brethren. 

In 1757, Teedyuscung, the proud, jealous head of the 
Delawares, requested the Governor of Pennsylvania to so 
tix and deline his land around his village on tlie Susque- 
hanna that "his children can never sell or yours ever 
buy them," and to remain so forever. He also asked the 
Proprietary Government to assist him in building houses 
at Wyoming before corn-planting time. Ten log houses, 
"twenty feet by fourteen in the clear, and one twenty- 
four by sixteen, of squai-ed logs, and dovetailed,'" were 
l)uilt for him in 1758. To check or crush the ambitious 
])rojects of New England men about forming a colony at 
AVyoming, intluenced their erection by Pennsylvania 
quite as much as any especial regard for the Delaware 
sachem.- One of the masons was killed and scalped by 
six hostile Indians while engaged at this labor. 

A treaty of peace was held at Easton, November 8, 1756, 
with great pomp and ceremony, when the conflicting in- 
terests of either party were long talked over and lifar- 
moniously adjusted amid the clattering of tongues and 
the smoke of the calumet. To cripple the French, against 
whom the English had formally proclaimed war in 1756, 
<>v rather to render the treaty of any practical vahie, the 
Iroquois, proud of their strength, never wielded in vain, 
and conscious of the wrongs of their fathers, they were 
impatient to redress, had first to hi? reconciled and con- 
sulted. '"The influence of Sir WLlliam Jolinson/' ^<\vs , 

' Pa. Arel'.., 1758, p. 8. " Col. Rec, 1754, p. CO. 



36 HISTORY UF TUli 

Miner, ''agent of Indian affairs, was invoked to hiiiii!; the 
Six Nations to a new Congress. JSTeithei- presents nor 
promises were spared, and in October, 1758, there was 
opened at Easton, one of the most imposing assemblages 
ever beheld in Pennsylvania. Chiefs from the Six 
Nations were there, namely, Mohawks, Oneidas, Onon- 
dagas, Cayiigas, Senecas, and Tuscaroras. There were 
also present embassadors from the tributary tribes of 
Minisinks, Mohicans, Wapingers, and Shawanese. Both 
the Governors of Pennsylvania and New Jersey at- 
tended ; with Sir AVilliam Johnson and George Crogan, 
Esq., sub Indian agent, a deputation from the Provincial 
Assembly at New Jersey, and a large concourse of eminent 
citizens from Pliiladel2:)hia and the neighboring counties. 
Teedyuscung on the way to the conference having fallen 
in company with the chief who had commanded the ex- 
pedition against the Gnadenhutten and Fort Allen, high 
words arose between them, when the king raised his 
tomahawk and laid the chief dead at his feet. Fi'om this 
moment, though vengeance might slumbe]", he was a 
doomed man, a sacrifice alike to policy and revenge. At 
the Congress Teedyuscung, eloquent and of imposing ad- 
dress, took at first a decided lead in the debates." But 
one of the chiefs of the Six Nations, says Chapman, '-on 
the other side, expressed in strong language his resent- 
ment against the British colonists, who had killed and 
imprisoned one of his tribe, and he, as well as other chiefs 
of those nations, took great umbrage at the importance 
assumed by Teedyuscung, whom, as one of the Dela- 
wares, they considered in some degree subject to their 
authority. Teedyuscung, however, supported the higii 
station which he held, with dignity and firmne s, and the 
different Indian tribes at length became ivconciled to each 
other. The conference having continued eighteen days, 
and all causes of misunderstanding between the English 
and Indians being removed, a general treaty of peace Avas 
concluded on the twenty-sixtli day of October. At this 



LACKAWAXXA VALLEY. 3( 

treaty the boundaries of the dittVivnt purchases nuid(^ from 
the Indians were more particularly described, and they 
received an additional compensation for theij- lands, 
consisting of knives, hats, caps, looking-glasses, tobacco- 
boxes, shears, gun-locks, combs, clothes, shoes, stock- 
ings, blankets, and sevei-al suits of hiced clothes for their 
chieftains, and when the business of the treaty was com- 
pleted, the stores of rum were opened and distributed to 
the Indians, who soon exhibited a scene of brutal in- 
toxication." 

Although for many years aftei'ward, the tomahawk 
hung over the Lackawanna and Susquehanna settlements 
like a shadow over the mountain, the decline of the 
Indian empire in America can be dated from the last- 
mentioned treaty, while the power of the hitherto victori- 
ous French, then marching through the forest with General 
Forbes to attack Fort Du Quesne, was so suddenly 
shaken by the desertion of their allies, as to i-esult in 
their defeat in this expedition, and their final oveillii-ow 
in Northern America. 

Daring this year, many of the Dela wares and Mousey s, 
and most of the Shawanese removed fi-om tlie valley 
westward. 

When Teedyuscung visited Easton, in July, 1756, Major 
Parsons was requested to keep a written memoranda of 
the general behavior and conversation of the king, from 
which it would seem that the high position assumed and 
maintained by Mm in Council, was hardly comy)atible or 
consistent with his ordinary life. ''The king and his 
wild company were perpetually drunk, very much on 
Gascoon, and at times abusive to the inhabitants, for they 
all spoke English more or less. The king was full of 
himself, saying frequently, that which side soever lie took 
must stand, and the other fall ; repeating it with insolence, 
that he came from the French, who had pressed him 
much to join them against the English, that now he was 
in the middle between the French and English, quite 



38 HISIORT OF THE 

disengaged from botli sides, and whether he joined with 
the English or Frencli, lie would publish it aloud to thw 
world, that all nations might know it. That he was 
born among the English, somewhere near Trenton, and m 
near fifty years old. He is a lusty, raw-boned man, 
haughty, and very desirous of respect and command ; he 
can drink three quarts or a gallon of rum a day, without 
being drunk ; he was the man that persuaded the Dela- 
wares to go over to the French, and then attack our fron- 
tiers, and he, and those with him, have been concerned in 
the, mischief done to the inhabitants of Northampton 
County. Some of the Indians said, that between forty or 
fifty of their people came to Drahoga, from one of the lakes, 
about the time they set out, in order to fall upon our in- 
habitants, and addressed Teedyuscung to liead them, but 
he told them he was going to the Governor of Pennsyl- 
vania to treat with him concerning a peace-, which the 
Mohocks had advised him to do, and therefore he ordered 
them to sit still till he came back again to them. The towns 
people observed that the shirts which the Indian women 
had on weie made of Dutch table-cloths, which it is sup- 
posed they took from the people they murdered on our 
frontiers. The king, in one of his conversations, said, 
that only two hundred French, and about eighty Indians 
were at the lake, where most of the English are, and that 
he could bring the most or all of them off. The Gover- 
nor invited Teedyuscung and the Indians to dine with 
him, but, before dinner, the king, with some of them, 
came to the Governor, and made the Governor four 
speeches, giving four strings of wampum, after the Indian 
manner: one to brush thorns from the Governor's legs, 
another to rub the dust out of his eyes to help him see 
clearly, another to open his ears and the fourth to clear 
his throat that he might speak plainly. Teedyuscung 
claimed to be king of ten nations. Being asked what ten 
nations, he answeivd, the united Six Nations : Mohocks, 
Onondauocs. Oneidas, Senecas, C3"ugas, and Tiiscaroras; 



LACKAWANNA VALLKT. 39 

and fjour others, DelaAvares, Shawanees, Mohickons, and 
Mnnsies, who wonld all ratify what he should do. He 
cariied the Belt of Peace with him, and whoever would, 
might take hold of it. But as to them that refused, the 
rest would all join together and fall upon them. 

"All the Indians, in short, would do as he would have 
them, as he was the great man. The Grovernor used the 
same four ceremonies to Teedyuscung, accompanied with 
four strings of wampum, after which the Governor and 
Indians went to dinner, escorted by a detachment of the 
First Battalion of the Pennsylvania Regiment."^ Conrad 
Weiser, the interpreter, was first introduced to Teedyus- 
cung at this time, who, after watching his movements a 
single day, reported to the Council ' ' that the king and 
the principal Indians being all yesterday under the force 
of liquoi", he had not been favored with so good an 
opportunity as he could liave wished of making himself 
acquainted with their history, but, in the main, he 
believed Teedyuscung was well inclined; he talked in 
high terras of his own merit, but expressed himself a 
friend to this Province."" Teedyuscung, at this council, 
Avas alleged to have been the instigator of the Indian 
outrages upon the whites in 1755, by sending large belts 
of wampum to various tribes on the war-path ; but the 
shrewd informer or negotiator, with a view of personal 
advantage and emolument, informed Governor Morris 
that, as Teedyuscung had brought on the war, he was 
the only person that could effect a peaceful solution of all 
Indian affairs. To do this, ''Teedyuscung must have a 
belt of wampum at least five or six feet long and twelve 
rows broad ; and besides the belt, he must have twelve 
strings to send to the several chiefs, to confirm the words 
that he sends.'' " 

» Pa. Arch., 1756, pp. 724-6. » Ibid., 1756, p. 727. ' Ibid., 1748-'56, p. 730. 



40 HISTORY OF THE 



LACKAWANNA RIVER AND VALLEY. 

The Indians, ever having an extraordinary appreciation 
of the beauties of nature, have given to their rivers and 
hikes, their mountains and valleys, names really rich and 
expressive. The transposition, however, of many of 
these names from one language to another, has so cor- 
rupted and changed their primitive expression, that much 
of tlieir beauty is partially lost or wholly destroyed. 

In the Algonquin or Iroquois vernacular, the valley was 
called Ad-jou-quay ; ^ in the harsher dialect of the Dt4a- 
wares, where no adjectives were known, spoken by all 
intervening clans, from the Minisinks, on the Delaware, 
to Shamokin, it was known as Lee-lia-ugh-hunV- or Lee- 
haw-hanna, pronounced Lr-hr-hr-nr (Lar-har-har-nar), 
the letter a either being silent, or in the Indian guttural 
having the sound of r. In succeeding years, the modifi- 
cations and construction of the word became so great as 
to become at length a matter of provincialism. 

Although in 1759 the stream was designated as Lee-ha- 
ugh-hunt by the Mouseys and Delawares living upon its 
banks, who complained of the intrusion of the whites at 
its mouth, the original map of Westmoreland (Wyoming), 
showing the Connecticut surveys in 1761, records it as 
Lack-aio-na. In 1762 the stream was known as Lec-ha- 
wa-nock / ^ in 1771 as Lam-aw-ioa-nak ; ^ in 1772 as Lock- 
o-worna ;Mn 177-1, Lackawanna and Lock-a-warna ;'' in 
1778 as iyac- u-wanack ; "' in 1790 as LaJc-u-wanuJr ; ^ in 
1791 as Lackawanny. From 1791 down to about 1837-'8, 
it was recognized both in private and official parlance as 
Lack-a-wannoclc. '' Wannock" lopped off by gradual 

' Col. Rec, vol. vii., p. 157. ^ Pa. Arch., 1759, p. 421. 

^ Col. Rec, vol. Lx., p. 7. * Pa. Arch., 1771 d- 392. 

* Westmoreland Records. " Ibid. 

' British Articles of Capitulation of three forts at Lacuwanack, July 4, 1778. 

* Luzerne County Court Records, l"9ii. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 4] 

habit at tliis time, became obsolete, and wanna took its 
place, thus adopting, as far as the idioms of language 
would permit, tlie original name as transmitted to us from 
Teedyuscung. Lackawanna is a corruption of the Indian 
"Lee-ha-ugh-hunt," or "Leo-haw-hanna f' Lee-haw, ov 
Lee-Tia, the prefix, signifies the forks or point of intersec- 
tion ; hanna, as in Susquehanna. Toly-hanna, Toppa- 
hannock, Rappa-hannock, Tunk-hannock and Tunk- 
lianna, implies, in Indian language, a stream of water. 
Hence the name, Lar-har-har-nar, or Lackawanna, the 
meeting of two streams— a name highly poetic and sweet 
sounding. 

The valley of the Lackawanna, picturesque and salu- 
brious to a delightful degree, watered by a stream from 
which it derived its name, lies about one hundred and 
thirty-eight miles northwest of New York in a direct line. 
It is about thirty-five miles in length, runs south and 
southeast, and in its general topographical configuration 
is nothing moi-e or less than a continuation, or rather 
extension, of the northern right arm of the classic and 
celebrated Valley of Wyoming cut in twain by Campbell's 
Ledge. The most northerly deposit of stone or anthra- 
cite coal found in America, enriches its entire border 
from the head of the Lackawanna, among the grand old 
beech and maples, down to its very moutlh The valley 
is, in fact, a gem carved out of a mountain of coal. 
Rimmed on either side by the coal and iron-clad Jfooslc,^ 
beautiful in its midwinter or summer foliage, wrapping 
its jewels in harmonious beds, it reposes like a rough 
cradle or canoe, tapering off at its upper extremitj^ in a 
narrow unimportant intervale. A few miles above Carbon- 
dale, the valley, already narrowed before, is more suc- 
cessfully interrupted by a succession of bowlders or hills, 
facetiously termed " Hog's Back," from their sharp, bris- 

1 This mountain, a low ramification of the great Appalachian chain, takes its 
name from the Moose inhabiting it at the time of the earliest explorationa by the 
whites. 



42 HISTORY OF TlIK 

tling appearance. Now and then the raountain cleft for a 
trout brook, elbows against the stream, giving its waters, 
too swift and shallow for navigable purposes, graceful 
and gradual fall. 

The Lackawanna River rises principally in Susque- 
hanna County, but one considerable branch emerges from 
the same marshy region in Wayne that sends out the 
Starucca, Lackawaxen, and Equinunk to join the Dela- 
ware, which, after many counter and diverse movements 
for a distance of at least fifty miles, pours its gentle 
volume into the Susquehanna at Pittston. Along its 
banks, shorn of the fairest portion of timber by the lum 
berman, the landscape is singularly fine, with slope, field, 
and village, while the stream itself offers to the eye every 
variety of smooth water, pool, and rapids. Here its 
margin, rock-bound and abrupt, is carved from the low- 
browed cliff", and there the alluvial meadow or cornfield 
ready for the husbandman, attests the luxurious character 
of the soil. 

Along the central and lower portion, coal of the finest 
quality is found in profusion, interstratified in many 
places with iron-ore of the most desirable and productive 
character. 

The conffuence of the Lackawanna and Susquehanna 
is described in the following beautiful lines by the late 
Mrs. Sigourney : — 

THE SUSQUEHANNA. 

ON ITS JUNCTION WITH THP: LACKAWANNA. 

BY MRS. 8IG0UKNEY. 

Rush on, glad stream, in thy power and pride 

To claim the hand of thy promised bride, 

For she hastes from the realms of the darkened mine, 

To mingle her murmured vows with thine : 

Ye have met, ye have met, and your shores prolong 

The liquid tone of your nuptial song. 



LACKAWANNA VALM:V. 4? 

Methinks ye wed as the white man's son 

And the child of the Indian King liave done. 

I saw the bride as she strove in vain 

To cleanse her brow from the carbon stain ; 

But she brings thee a dowry so rich and tr 

That thy love must not shrink from the ta .y hue. 

Her birth was rude in a mountain cell, 

And her infant freaks there are none to ' -"J ; 

Yet the path of her beauty was wild and free. 

And in dell and forest she hid from thee ; 

But the day of her fond caprice is o'er, 

And she seeks to part from thy breast no more. 

Pass on, in the joy of thy blended tide. 
Through the land where the blessed Miquon died. 
No red-man's blood with its guilty stain, 
Hath cried unto God from that broad domain ; 
With the seeds of peace tliey have sown the soil, 
Bring a harvest of wealth for their hour of toil. 

On, on, through the vale where the brave ones sleep, 

Where the waving foliage is rich and deep. 

I have stood on the mountain and roamed through the glen, 

To the beautiful homes of the Western men ; 

Yet naught in that region of glory could see 

So fair as the vale of Wyoming to me. 

WAS WYOMING ONCE A VAST LAKE? 

The Kittatinny, or Blue Ridge, which skirts along Penn- 
sylvania and Virginia, is probably one of the most even 
ranges in the world. At its base it rarely exceeds a mile, 
while its summit, covered with perpetual foliage, preserves 
an uniformity of height that distinguishes it from all other 
mountains stretched across the country. 

At some period in the world's history, tiiis ridge doubt- 
less was the margin of a vast lake into which ran the 
waters of the Chemung, Chenango, Delaware, and the 
Susquehanna, and over mountain, moor, and valley, 
rolled one common wave. Evidence of this is written upon 
rock and mountain around us, while the earth from the 



4 t HISTOKY OF THE 

hill-side mine, disdains to conceal its share of the water 
spoils. The vast quantity of petrified shells, alluvials, 
and strata of shale and clay and organic remains, found 
along the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Susquehanna, and 
many other valleys, and the character of these rivers, all 
running in a transverse or cross direction, have been 
compelled to wash out by slow and triumphant progress, 
or rupture the obstructing heights to find their way to 
the sea, suggests the inquiry. Were they not once the 
bottoms of immense lakes ? And did not the finny tribes, 
the huge serpent, and the whale, sport in these inland salt 
waters in times of yore 'i 

No one can carefully examine the strata of the moun- 
tains of the United States, especially, the Alleghanies or 
Blue Eidge, or even glance at the map, without finding 
a fact existing in no other part of the world, that all their 
principal ridges cross the great as well as the lesser rivers, 
instead of running parallel with them. The Delawaiv, 
Susquehanna, Potomac, and Shenandoah, all issue from 
the steep mountains of the Blue Ridge. 

One of the most distinguished authors and eminent 
naturalists, C. F. Volney, who visited Harper's Ferry in 
1796, and who gave the subject great attention and re- 
search, believed that " the chain of the Blue Ridge in its 
ejitire state, completely denied the Potomac a ])assage 
onward, and that then all the waters of the upper part of 
the river, having no issue, formed several considerable 
lakes, which spread themselves between the Blue Ridge 
and the chain at Kittatinny, not only to the Susquehanna 
and Schuylkill, but heyond the Schuylkill, and even to 
the Delaware. It is obvious that the lakes flowing oft' 
must have changed the whole face of the lower country. 
Several branches having at once or in succession, given a 
passage to the streams of water now called James, Poto- 
mac, Susquehanna, Schuylkill, and Delaware, their 
general and common reservoir was divided into as many 
distinct lakes, separated by the risings of the ground that 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 4-5 

exceeded this level. Each of these lakes had its particular 
drain, and this drain being at length worn down to the 
lowest level, the land was left completely uncovered. 
This must have occurred earlier with the James, Susque- 
hanna, and Delaware, because their basins are more 
elevated, and it must have happened more recently with 
the Pototnac, for the opposite reason, its basin being the 
deepest of all." 

How far the Delaware then extended the retlux of its 
waters toward the east, he could not ascertain ; " however, 
it appears its basin was bounded by the ridge that ac- 
companies its left bank ; and which is the apparent con- 
tinuation of the Blue Ridge and North Mountain. It is 
probable that its basin has always been separate from 
that of the Hudson, as it is certain that the Hudson has 
always had a distinct basin, the limit and mound of whicli 
is ahove West Point, at a place called the Highlands." ^ 

Schoolcraft and Professor B^ck, and other eminent 
writeis. also subscribe to this theory. The basin of the 
L:»ckawanna, viewed from the summit of the mountain 
back of Scranton, or from one of the more elevated points 
farther up the valley, exhibits the internal appearance and 
form of a lake so plainly, that the idea of the ancient ex- 
istence of one here is indubitably forced upon the observer. 
Other circumstances tend to confirm this impression, as 
the lieaps of detached rock strewn below many of the 
gorges, especially at the Delaware Water Gap, where the 
waters were held back until the great embankment gave 
way before^ the Aveight of the vast body of water above, 
or by attrition, convulsion, or glacier action, and brought 
down all that stratum of earth and mud which now gives 
such agricultural strength and value to the shores of the 
lower DelaAvare. 

A few yards above the bridge, across the Susquehanna 
at Pittston, can be seen a large rock of many thousand 

' American Antiquities, pp. 352-37?.. 



46 HISTOKV OF THE 

tons in weight, of wliicli Mr. Cliarles Miner thus writ<\s : 
"Standing on the hank of the river, a little below the 
mouth of the Lackawanna, and looking northward, it ap 
pears as if by some power little short of omnipotent, the 
solid rock^ had been cloven down near a thousand feet 
to open a passage for the water. Being on the river- bank 
twelve years ago, with the able and lamented Mr. Packer, 
then chairman of the senatorial committee, to view the 
coal region of Luzerne, he pointed to a huge mass of bro- 
ken and contorted rock, evidently out of place, which 
now lies at Pittston Ferry, between the canal and river, 
and expressed the decided and not improbable opinion, 
that in the convulsion of nature which separated the 
mountain above us, this mass must have been torn away 
and borne b}^ the rushing flood to its present resting- 
place. Twenty miles below, where the Susquehanna 
takes leave of the plains, the mountains are equally lofty 
and precipitous. In many places the rocks distinctly ex- 
hibit the abrasions of water many feet above the highest 
pitch to which the river has ever been known to rise, 
going to show, that at some very remote period, this had 
been a lake, and indicating that there had been a chain 
of lakes probably along the whole line of the stream. 
Banks of sand-hills, covered with rounded stone, mani- 
festly worn smooth by attrition, similar stones being 
found wherever wells are sunk, tend to confirm the opin- 
ion. The soil is chiefly alluvial, and the whole depth and 
surface, so far as examined, show great changes by the 
violeiit action of water.' "^ 

The existence of this lake or lakes, made by the inter- 
vening hills, explains the appearance of the several stages 
or flats ol)served along the Wyoming plains and the 
Lackawanna, and even at Cobb's Gap, where the roaring 
brook flees from the Pocono, as if the water once had a 
greater volume than now, or was higher at one period 

' Campbell's Ledge. " Miner's History of Wyoming, p. 12. 



LACKAWANNA VAI.LKY, 4» 

than at anothei-, and by some means was drained off in 
sQcli a manner that tlie receding wave made a new mark 
of embankment, indicating the original height of the shore 
of these lakes and rivers. 

On the very summit of the Pocono^ Mountain, about 
twenty miles east of the Lackawanna, lies a broad marsh, 
elevated many hundred feet above the Delaware Water 
Gap, 1,969 feet above tide-water, covered in a few places, 
as can be seen from the passing cars, with a deep strata 
of sand, similar to that found on the sea-shore, which, in 
spite of the drainage of the water around it by these great 
breaks in the mountain, has maintained its sedentary and 
original position, while the subsiding waters hollowed 
out the valleys and formed cascades of beauty, which 
marked and enlivened the wild landscape long after the 
Noachian deluge. 

Mr. Schoolcraft, well known to the reading public as 
one of the most accurate and entertaining writers and ex- 
plorers in American antiquities, corroborates this theory, 
and asks the question, " May we not suppose tiiat the 
great northern lakes are the remains of such an ocean f '- 
If not so, the}' were probably the mere remnant of a great 
inland sea. 

The weight of the accumulated waters, coming from the 
north, assisted perhaps by volcanic agency, possibly made 
the various gaps in the mountains, and as the liberated 
waters took up the line of march to the sea, the whole 
geological features of the lower country acknowledged 
the power of the water}* plowshare. Whether this abyss 
boiled with a heat far beyond the temperature of white- 
hot iron, from the immense furnaces below over the seams 
of liquid coal, or at what period this watery or eruptive 

* Pocono is the name given by the wliite people to the mountain dividing the 
Delaware from the Susquehanna, after the Indian name of the stream that flows 
from it, called by them Poco-hanne, wliich signilies a stream issuing from a moun- 
tain. " Hanne "' means flowing water ; Tunk-hanne, the smallest among other 
streams in the same locality. Tope-hanne (ToJyhannah), alder creek or stream. &c 

* American Antiquities, p. 367. 



48 HISTORY OF THE 

conquest transpired, lies so far beyond the earliest times 
of any written or traditional history, that no explanation 
or data is known other than that found written upon the 
terraced rock along the sides and bottoms of these ancient 
mountain lakes. 

Contemporary with these phenomena, or in more pre- 
Adamic times, it is evident that the topographical charac- 
ter of the Lackawanna Valley was essentially changed. 
The geological conformation of the country along the 
stream ; the character, form, and direction of the Alle- 
ghany range thrown across southern New York ; its mean 
altitude near the Great Bend of the Susquehanna River 
being but little if any greater than at Tioga Point ; the 
comi:)arative freshness and shape, as well as the confu- 
sion of all the strata of earth, stone, and coal, along the 
Lackawanna, with the general appearance of the country 
traversed by the Susquehanna and Lackawanna, afford 
abundant evidence of the correctness of this conclusion. 

Instead of breaking off so abruptly from its apparent 
course at this point, and cautiously feeling its way far 
along the border of the mountains, until it reached Tioga 
Point, and then canying its current through a passage 
ruptured through successive ridges, until, with all its 
beauty and boldness, it opened into the slackened waters 
of Wyoming, it probably struck boldly down into a 
channel now closed by some great upheaval or disturb- 
ance in the geological world, and sought the valley where 
now the Lackawanna mingles with the waters of the 
Susquehanna. 

Trace up the Susquehanna, step by step, to the High- 
lands of New York, or down through its narrow passage 
to Wyoming, and not a single vein or spar of coal is visi- 
ble ; go up to the Lackawanna, modest in its volume, to 
the iiid'cated point, and more than midway from the 
mouth of the stream, coal deposits, grand in their charac- 
ter and exhaustless in their creation, everywhere appear ; 
all of which confirms the theory, that, whatever local 



LACKAWA^•KA VALI.KV. 49 

causes or convulsions once effected the niineralogical fea- 
tures of the valley, the wave of the ocean, or the waters 
of a much larger stream than tlie Lackawanna once occu- 
pied its place. 

No less tlian five veins of coal have been washed away 
from the eastern side of the Lackawanna, a mile above 
Scranton, by the propelling flood of olden time, and their 
crushed and blackened deposition found in the alluvial 
banks below. The city of Scranton, or the old village 
proper, embracing the sand banks, stands upon such a 
singular deposit. 

Very many of our mountain notches appear like vol- 
canic outlets. The evidence of subterranean or oceanic 
volcanic fires exists to-day in the ocean, and now and in 
.1 _ " "lamor, make food of coasts and cities. Their 

existence explain why the carboniferous and even the 
granitic strata of rock are inclined to the horizon in angles 
of foi'ty-five degrees and upward in so many of the moan- 
Tain i-anges throughout the coal basins of Pennsylvania, 
and whicli is so especially noticed and delineated in the 
huge ledge of rocks thus sloping in distinct lamination or 
layers in the well-known notch of the mountain between 
Providence and Abington, about two miles northwest of 
Scranton, called "Leggett's Gap." 

WAK-PATIIS. 

One of the three long-trodden patlis of the Avarrior lead- 
ing out of Wyoming, led eastward to Coshutunk (Co- 
checton), a small Indian settlement upon the shore of the 
upper Delaware. Leaving the valley at Asserughney 
village, standing at the mouth of the stream, it followed 
the eastern bank of the Lackawanna uj) to Springbrook, 
Stafford Meadow, and Nayaug or Roaring Brook, cross- 
ing the last two named ones a short distance below the 
present location of Scranton, and passed into the Indian 
town of Capoose. Here one path led off to Oquago, New 



50 HISTORY OF THE 

York (how Windsor), aLout forty miles distant, through 
Leggett's Gap and the Abingtonian wilderness, while the 
other, diverging from Capoose in an easterly direction, 
plunged boldly into the forest, passing along where Dan- 
more now stands, up the mountain slope to its very sum- 
mit. This foot-path crossed the Moosic range near the 
residence of the late John Cobb, Esq., and thence through 
Little Meadows, in Salem, and the low Wallenpaupack 
country beyond. This trail seldom ran through the gaps, 
but it generally, like many of their war-paths, kept the 
higher ground, or where the woods were less dense, because 
the warriors, agile and quick-sighted on the march, pre- 
ferred climbing ODer a considerable elevation, to the laoui 
of cutting a trail through more level ground, or deer 
wooded ravines, with their stone hatchets; besides Tn- 
overlooking points were chosen invariably, so that upon 
entering or leaving a valley, they could better discover 
the approach or presence of an enemy. Of this narrow 
trail, worn to the depth of several inches in many places 
on the mountains where roots and rocks offered no resist- 
ance to passing moccasins, few indeed, are the remaining 
traces where the warrior and the war-song enlivened the 
way but a little over a century ago. Near the mountain 
spring, liowever, this old Indian patli for seveial hundred 
yards to tlie east of it, was so deeply itidented as to show 
its depth and general outline even to-day. 

'Yh^ first rude wagon-road cut out and opened from tlie 
Hudson River to Wyoming Valley, for the pack-horse or 
wlieels, followed this track the greater portion of the way, 
because of its being the most direct route from Connecti- 
cut to the backwoods of Lackawanna and Wyoming, then 
called Westmoreland by the Yankees, who began to peo- 
ple it. 

INDIAN SPRING. 

iVlmost upon the very summit of the Moosic Mountain, 
between the valley and Cobb's settlement, by the side of 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 51 

this old trail, bubbles from the earth a large spring, called 
the " Indian Spring." No matter how parched the lips 
of mother-earth — how shrunken tlie volume of streams 
elsewhere, this spring, indifferent to drought or flood, in 
summer or winter, is ever filled to its brim with cold pure 
water. 

Away from the world's hot pulse ; hemmed in by tlie 
pine whose waving tops give partial entrance to the noon- 
day sun, and once gave shelter to rovers of the wilderness 
strolling from tribe to tribe witli friendly or avenging 
tomahawk, and lifting its fountain as it does almost from 
the very top of a high vertical ledge, running nearly a 
mile before it opens into Cobb's Gap. this spring from its 
peculiar location, has much to render it attractive and 
romantic to the visitor. It forms one of the lesser tribu- 
taries of Roaring Brook, from whence Scranton is sup- 
plied with water. 

In July, 1788, two persons were killed at this point. 
Fleeing from Wyoming Valley resounding with the exult- 
ant shout of the tories and their red auxiliaries, and the 
faint cries of tlie captives reserved for ransom or tortuie. 
tliey bent over, thirsty and exhausted, for the invigorating 
draught. They never rose from their knees. The hatchet 
of the savage, intently watching the victims, flew fi-om the 
ambush ; the stony knife dripped through their scalps, 
and the wolves at night made long and loud tlieir carnival 
over the unresisting dead. 

A large red rock rims one side of this spring, whose 
crimson color tradition imputes to the blood of the victims 
thus immolated. 

IXDIAX RELICS AND FOKTIFICATIOXS. 

No evidence is found of Indian forts along the Lacka- 
wanna, altliough there existed one or more a few miles 
below its mouth, one of which is thus described by Chap- 
man in his History of Wyoming : — 



"In the valley of Wyoming, there exist some iN^naiiis 
of Indian fortifications, which appear to have been con- 
structed by a race of people very different in their habits 
from those who occupied the place when first discovered 
by the whites. Most of these ruins have been so much 
obliterated by the operations of agriculture, that their 
foi'ms can not now be distinctly ascertained. That which 
remains the most entire was examined by the writer dur- 
ing the summer of 1817, and its dimensions carefully as- 
certained ; although, from frequent plowing, its foint 
had become almost destroyed. It is situated in the town- 
ship of Kington, upon a level plain on the north side of 
Toby's Ci-eek, about one hundred and fifty feet from its 
bank, and about a half mile from its confluence Avith the 
Susquehanna. It is of an oval or elliptical form, having- 
its longest diameter fi-om the northwest to the southeast, 
at right-angles to the creek, tliree hundred and thirty- 
seven feet, and its shortest diameter from the northeast to 
the southwest, two hundred and seventy-two feet. On 
the southwest side, appears to have been a gateway about 
tAvelve feet wide, opening toward the great eddy of thc^ 
river, into which the ci-eek falls. From present appear- 
ances, it consisted, probably, of only one mound or ram- 
part, which, in height and thickness, appears t • nave been 
the same on all sides, and was constructed of -<irth ; the 
plain on which it stands, not abounding in stoi.-^. 

"On the outside of the rampart is an intrenchment or 
ditch, formed, probably, by removing the earth of which 
it is composed, and which appears never to have been 
walled. The creek, on which it stands, is bounded by a 
high steep bank on that side, and at ordinary times is suf- 
ficiently deep to admit canoes to ascend from the river to 
the fortification. When the first settlers came to Wyo- 
ming, this j^lain was covered with its native forest, con- 
sisting principally of oak and yellow pine ; and the trees 
which grew in the rampart and in the intrenchment, are 
said to have been as large as those in any other part of 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY, 53 

the valley ; one large oak, particularly, uj)ori being cut 
down, was ascertained to be seven hundred years old. 
The Indians had no traditions concerning these fortihca- 
tions, neither did they appear to have any knowledge of 
the purposes for which they were constructed. They 
were, perhaps, erected about the same time with those 
upon the waters of the Ohio, and probably by a similar 
people, and for similar purposes.'' 

Another fortification existed on Jacob' s Plains, or the 
upper flats in Wilkes Barre, Its situation is the highest 
part of the low grounds, so that, only in extraordinary- 
floods, is the spot covered with water." ^ This fort seems 
to have been of about the same in form, shape, and size, 
to that described by Chapman, and in its interior, near the 
southern line, the ancient people all concur in stating that 
there existed a well." 

At the continence of the Lackawanna with the Susque- 
hanna, Indian graves and remains of wigwam life were 
found in great abundance sixty years ago. Skeletons ex- 
humed by the waters of the spring freshets; lay in such 
numbers along the banks of the rivers, and so familiar 
had they become to the thoughtless passer, that boys were 
often seen with a thigh-bone in each hand drumming 
Yankee Doodle upon the whitened skulls, thus found 
upon the plain around them. Some of these were doubt- 
less the remains of the warriors who fell in the battles of 
the valley, as bullets corroded and white, and sometimes 
broken arrow-heads, were found wedged in the bones, in 
dicating the precise manner of their death. 

Others, crumbling the moment they were uncovered, or 
only furnishing a dark and peculiar deposit, bore evi- 
dence of greater age in their burial. Bowls and jDOts of 
the capacity of a gallon or more, ingeniously cut fi-om 
soap-stone, and ornamented with rich designs of beauty 
to the Indian's eye, were often found preserved with the 

' Miner's History. - Ibid. 



5-i HISTORY OF THE 

remains, xls none of tliis soap-stone is found nearer this 
place than Mary hind or New Hampshire, it would seem 
to indicate the migratory as well as the commercial char- 
acter of the tribe once possessing them. Hard, highly 
polished, and handsomely dressed stones, five or six inches . 
in length, fitted for the hand, and used, probably, for skin- 
ning deer and other animals, hatchets, beads, and the silent 
calumet, here and there intermingled with the remains. 

On the brink of the western range of the Moosic, in 
Leggett' s Gap, between Providence and Abington, an In- 
dian grave was found in a very singular manner a number 
of years ago. A quick-footed deer, fleeing from his pur- 
suer, leaped upon the end of a gun-barrel projecting from 
the ground, and brought it to the hunter's view. A little 
excavation exposed a large quantity of silica or flint stones 
worked into arrow and spear heads, a stone tomahawk, a 
French gun-l)arrel, an iron hoe, and some human bones, 
much decayed. The skeleton lay on its right side, with the 
knees drawn up, the head re(;lining toward the east, while 
immediately over reposed the implements and weapons of 
the deceased. The hoe and the gun. both much corroded, 
were prol)ably obtained from the French, while theii- 
burial with the warrior upon this rugged spur of the 
mountain would indicate the time of their deposit as a 
period of peace. In his lap were found the arrows, made 
from one to two inches in length. Nearly a hundi<'d 
small snail-shells, all fitted for stringing, and which had 
probably been used for belts or beads, lay immediately 
under the arrows. There was also a pipe, made from dark 
stone, one end of it being shaped for a stopple, and couhl 
be used for a whistle to gather the tribe from afar doAvu 
the ravine, and the otluT for a scoop or spoon. This sin- 
gular contrivance, if not used for a whistle, probably 
achieved great usefulness in ponidge or broth. A small 
quantity of mineral, resembling black-lead, intended, 
doubtless, U)v medicine, had also been deposited in this 
ir^ohited grave, beside the departed hunter. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 00 

A portion of tli<'s(% and a vast quantity of other inter 
esting relics of the red-man, in a fine state of preservation, 
are now in the possession of the writer, open and fi-ee to 
all who choose to visit tliem. 

Upon the western bank of the Lackawanna, in the 
upper portion of Capoose Meadow, in Providence, oppo- 
site the residence of the late Dr. Silas B. Robinson, slopes 
off a gentle mound, where, in 1795, a number of Indian 
graves were discovered and exhumed by a party of set- 
tlers in search of antiquarian spoils. As one of the 
mounds seemed to have been prepared with especial 
attention, and contained, with the bones of the warrior, a 
great quantity of the implements of the deceased, it was 
supposed, erroneously no doubt, to have been the grave 
of the chieftain Capoose. These graves, few in number, 
perhaps pointed to the last of the group of Mousey war- 
riors who had offered incense and sacrifice to the Great 
Spirit at Capoose. The strings of wampum and their war 
instruments — for which this mound was disturbed — bore 
them company as they lay piled over with the gray sand 
of the meadow, and were protected and comforted on 
their long journey by these rude, yet cherished, amulets. 
Tliese graves, endowed with no utterance but that of 
uncertain tradition, have been so obliterated by i\u^ 
operations of agriculture that little or no trace of them 
now appears to the unpracticed eye. 

Arrows, stone vessels, tomahawks and knives, stone 
mortars and their accompanying pestles for pounding corn 
into nas-ump, or samp, and other curious relics of Indian 
times, are occasionally found in the valley, and although 
time has robbed them of much of their original beauty 
and usefulness, they have not lost, nor never can lose, 
their savage interest. 

To the antiquarian, however, nothing could provoke 
more inquiry and interest than the remains of an ancient 
Indian mound or encampment, found in Covington, Lu- 
zerne County, near the line of the Delaware, Lackawanna, 



56 HISTORY OF Till': 

and Western Bailway, which to all appearances were as 
old as those existing in Wyoming Valley. These remains 
were discovered in 1833 by Mr. Welch, then a draughts- 
man in the Land Office at Washington, while he was hunt- 
ing along Bell-meadow Brook, a small tributary of the 
Lehigh, on the Pocono. The accidental discovery of a 
piece of pottery among the loose pebbles on the bank of 
the brook, so different in its character to any thing he had 
ever seen before, naturally awakened his curiosity, and led 
to the subsequent excavation of a vast quantity of sharp 
and flinty arrow and spear heads, a large stone hatchet, 
bowls of immense capacity, fashioned and baked from 
sand and cla}'. These bowls were indented upon their 
sides with deep hnger prints, and some w^ere tastily orna- 
mented with characters original and unique. 

The late Richard Drinker, Esq., of Scranton, a gentle- 
man eminent in his day for genial philosophy and social 
abilities, to whom the writer was indebted for the above 
facts, was present at the time of their discovery, and de- 
scribed the pottery thus found as being enormous in quan- 
tity. An elegant short pipe, belonging probably to a 
squaw, was also found immediately under the tomahawk, 
in so perfect a state of preservation that it was to all 
appearances, as lit for the consumption of their favorite 
weed as when first fashioned into shape. A huge pile of 
elk bones and teeth were also found, but the bones crum- 
bled to dust the moment they were exposed to the touch 
or air. Underneath them all, lay the remains of a great 
camp-lirf^, which was probably hurriedly deserted, and as 
hurriedly smothered with sand and stone to the deptli of 
twelve or fourteen inches. Ashes, coals, and half-burned 
brands, one of which still bore the marks of a hatchet dis- 
tinctly upon it, were spread over a surface of at least 
fifteen feet. 

The most singular article exhumed, was a number of 
flat, delicately smoothed stone, somewhat resembling a 
carpenter' s whetstone in shape and size, each one bored 



LACKAWANNA VALLKT. rH 

'with two or three small circuhii- holes near the extremity 
or the center. Whether these had been drilled and used 
for weaving fish-nets from wood or hemp, constructing 
belts of wampum, or for other mechanical or ornamental 
purposes, is a matter of inquiry or conjecture. 

Trees of Norway girth have grown upon the edge of 
this brook since this camp-fire went out forever, and 
almost upon these remains, one immense hemlock, green 
in its foliage, has defied the storms of centuries as it stands 
like a Roman sentinel of old, over this ancient sepulcher 
of the forgotten savage. 

The absence of iron and copper utensils among the 
■debris, furnished abundant proof that these relics had 
been deposited by the red-men in the stone period, long 
before their knoAvledge of the European race, but why 
they were thus left isolated from their war-paths, or the 
purpose or the cause of their sraotheied fire, the learned 
antiquarian can only conjecture. 

Tlie beaver, caught more for its furs than its casto- 
reum — now a considerable medicinal agent — once held their 
court in a low marsh or meadow adjoining this camp, from 
which the Indians evidently obtamed sand for their pot- 
tery. 

In fact the Lackawanna, and the wilder waters of the 
Le-Tir (Lehigh), were inhabited by the beaver at the time 
of the first settlement of the valley by the whites. Across 
these streams, especially the upper Lehigh, they built 
their '' beaver dams" upon the most scientific principles 
of the engineering art, living upon ash, birch, poplars 
and the softer wood, of which they were particularly 
fond.' In the deepest part of the pond they built their 
houses, resembling somewhat the wigwam of the Indian, 
with a floor of saplings, sloping tow^ard the water like an 
inclined plane. Here, secure in their moated castle, they 



' There are mauy places jilong all the streams of thecouutry, originally stripped 
■of all their growth by the industrious and engineering beaver. 



58 HISTORY OF THE 

slept with their tails under water, ascending the floor witb 
the rise of the stream. Rafting, when tlie rivers were 
swollen, destroyed their dams, and drove the beaver to 
creeks more quiet and remote. In 1826 there came from 
Canada an old trapper in search of the coveted furs, who 
caught Avith his traps all of these industrious animals hut 
a single one lingering along the Lehigh and the Lacka- 
wanna ; this lonely beaver by sharpened instinct, defied 
the trapper's cunning for a year or two, when, wandering 
down the swifter waters of the Alanomink in search of his 
lost companions, he was killed near Stroudsburg. 

Is it not a little curious that with all the romantic ancient 
history of the Wyoming and Lackawanna valleys, so little 
attention until recently has been given toward gathering 
and preserving the various Indian implements once used 
in peace or in war? The writer has a passion for the 
old— not the old hills covered with forests, through whose 
hoary locks centuries have rustled unnumbered and 
unsung — but the lingering relics of a race, the bravest the 
world ever knew, which convey at once to the mind the 
ideal, the strife, the passions, the achievements, and the 
glory of another day and another race. These links and 
landmarks of remote antiquity ; the rarer implements of 
copper sometimes found in their ancient graves ; the rude 
inscriptions which mark the first impulses of the wild-men 
toward letters or written legend ; the stone battle-ax or 
tomahawk once flung or brandished by the brave exulting 
over his fallen foe ; the knife whose scalping edge gleamed 
alike over the victim in the cradle or the field ; the keen 
edged arrow twanged upon its fatal mission, or the calu- 
met cherished afar for its silent and subduing power, 
once smoked around the forest encampment— all are so 
associated with by-gone times, that as the plow now and 
then up-turns some little memento of the warrior' s life, it 
astonishes the antiquarian to learn, that, aside from the 
rt^ally valuable and magnificent collection of Hon. Steuben 
Jenkins of Wyoming, and those possessed bj' the writer. 



LACKAWANNA VALI.EV. OL) 

SO few of these memorials have been treasun'd up in the 
valley to-day. Such a group of Indian relies, embracing 
every variety able to illustrate the life, religion, and 
character of the former occupants of the country, long be- 
fore the aggressions and repeated wrongs of the white man 
had become a great national reproach, and had turned 
tlie simple savage into a western heathen, compelled to 
fight for a standing-place, or starve with plenty around 
him and yet beyond his reach, could not fail to be invalu- 
able as years rendered their possession difheult or quite 
impossible. ' 

Whatever might have been the former character of 
Indian warfare in the earliest history of Wyoming, or 
however much the infant settlements tliroughout the 
country may have suffered from the fagot and the knife — 
when the cries of helpless womanhood and the innocence 
of cliildliood plead alike in vain — it is established by 
indubitable evidence of government officials,- and else- 
where, that in the more recent wars the Indians have not 
been the aggressors. We know, by living testimony, that 
they have been crowded, inch by inch, southward and 
westward by the constant incursions and shameful en- 
croachments of the Caucasian race, until, from being a 
great, proud, and powerful nation, respected for their 
virtues and feared for their strength, extending immense 
influence over the Western world, they have been r*^- 
duced to a mere handful of lurking wai-riors, rendered 
desperate by maltreatment and impoverished by misfor- 
tune. 

INDIAN APPLE-TKEE. 

In a description of New Netherland (New York), pub- 
lished at Amsterdam, in 1671, the appearance of the New 
Netherlanders (Indians of the Island of New York), are 
thus described, and will answer every description of the 

' See Appendix. " See Mr. Bogy'.s Report on Indian Affairs. 



60 HISTORY OF THh 

Lackawanna Indians: — "This people is divided into 
divers nations, all well-shaped and strong, having pitch- 
black and lank hair, as coarse as a horse's tail, broad 
shoulders, small waist, brown eyes, and snow-white teeth ; 
they are of a sallow color, abstemious in food and drink. 
Water satisfies their thirst ; high and low make use of 
Indian corn and beans, flesh meat and fish, prepared all 
alike. The crushed corn is daily boiled to a pap, called 
by them sappaen. They observe no set time for meals. 
Whenever hunger demands, the time for eating arrives. 
Beaver's tails are considered the most savory delicacy. 
Whilst hunting, they live some days on roasted corn, 
carried about the person in a little bag. A little corn in 
water swells to a large mass. Henry Hudson relates that 
he entered the river Montaines in the latitude of forty 
degrees, and there went ashore. The Indians made 
strange gambols with dancing and singing; carried ar- 
rows, the points of which consisted of sharp stones, 
fastened to the wood with pitch ; they slept under the 
blue sky, on little mats of platted leaves of trees ; suck 
strong tobacco ; are friendly, but very thievish. Hudson 
sailed up thirty miles higher, went into a canoe w^ith an 
old Indian, a chief over forty men and seventeen women, 
who conducted him ashore. They all abode in one house 
well built of the bark of oak-trees." ^ 

The domestic habits of the Monsey tribe, when not 
engaged in warfare, were extremely simple and lazy. 
Patches of open land or '"Indian clearings" early were 
found in the valley, where onions, cantaloupes, beans, and 
corn, and their favorite weed, tobacco^ were half cultiva- 
ted by the obedient squaw. 

On the low strip of land lying upon either side of the 
street railroad, midwa}^ between Scranton and Provi- 
dence, and near the cottage built some years since by 
Dr. Throop, now know^i as the "Atlantic Garden." there 

' Documentary History of New York, vol. iv., p. 124. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 61 

was found by the first white explorers into the valley, a 
permanent camp-place which had, to all appearances, 
long been used for tillage and a dwelling-place. Within 
this ancient clearing the passer can hardly fail to observe 
an apple-tree standing on the east side of the road, crag- 
ged and venerable, even if some of its limbs betoken the 
approach of age or the presence of neglect. Its precise 
location can be seen upon the Indian map of Capoose 
Meadow. This is the Indian ajiple-tree, of great age, 
thirteen and a half feet in circumlerence, and possibly 
was planted by the friendly hand of Capoose, more than 
a century ago. By arms selfish and rude, this old tree, 
which deserves a protecting fence to honor its memory, 
was bereft of its mates many years ago, because their 
wide-spread branches threw too much shade upon the 
inclosiivg meadow ! A few sprigs of grass probably re- 
paid for the destroying act. This single tree now stands 
ah^ne as a relic of primitive husbandry at Capoose, 
affording in the summer months, by its green foliage, as 
ample shade to the lolling ox or idle boy as it once gave 
to the squaw or her lord when he skimmed along the 
La-ha-ha-na in his own canoe. In one of the apple-trees 
thus cut down, in 1804, were counted one hundred and 
fifty concentric circles or yearly growths, thus dating the 
tree back to a time long before the reports of the trapper 
or the story of the Indians came out of the valley to the 
whites. Seventy years ago a large wild-plum orchard, 
[Standing in a swale adjoining this clearing, hung with 
millions of the juicy fruit, while the grape, with almost 
tiopical luxuriance, purpled the intermingling tree-tops. 
The vines, none of which now remain, as Avell as the 
apple-trees, were no doubt the result of Indian culture. 

BEACON-FIRES AND INDIAN LEGEND. 

Every gorge or up- shooting point in the range diversi- 
fying the valley is enriched with its tradition and story. 
In the Indian wars, the Moosic or Cobb Mountain, afi'ord- 



62 HISTORY OF THE 

ing as it did an admirable view of the entire valley, and 
a wide scope of countij toward the Wallenpaupack and 
Delaware, was long used by the forest men for tlie 
location of their beacon fires. Campbell's Ledge, I'roni 
its sharp altitude, so located as to overlook both valleys 
aa far as inhabited by them, was held in corresponding 
in\portance from this fcict. 

So well were these evening lights understood by them, 
that the warriors could be collected to any given jioint 
wHh rare speed and certainty. Should any thing on tlieir 
part demand hasty action, fire after fire would spring up 
with wonderful rapidity on every height and plateau, at 
intervals of a few miles, upon the mountain-tops ; and as 
they successively gleamed their lurid light to the sky, 
they conveyed a meaning to the savage mind well known 
as if their native guttural had told it in the valley. Once 
lighted, these beacon-fires, around which the warriors 
danced and sang in their wild joy, or prepared meals 
after the march of the day, could be seen for a great dis- 
tance. No language was more silent or expressive to the 
inhabitant of the forest ; none awoke greater danger to 
the pioneer than tlieir appearance. 

No matter how sudden or swift the pursuit, when the 
fireplace was reached the red chieftains had vanished, 
leaving nothing behind them but expiring brands. Along 
many of the higher peaks of the mountain, generally 
upon the eastern border of the Lackawanna, can yet be 
seen faint traces of these ancient beacons. Huge, gray 
stones, partially cracked by the heat of the fire whose 
location it marked, have been visited by the writer, upon 
an eminence distinguished at Spring Brook, near the resi- 
dence of our hospitable and humorous friend, Edward 
Dolph. This peak is one of the prominent ones, where 
this primitive manner of telegraphing carried dismay or 
hope to many a watching woodsman down in the valley. 
These places faced the valley, and this one, unlike the 
others visited, appears not to have been disturbed in its 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 63 

solitude since the brand of the sachem expired a century 
ago. 

FeAV portions of country afford a broader scope for 
legendary research than that along the Susquehanna and 
Lackawanna. Here, immured in the foi'est, marked only 
by paths and streams, and surrounded by every element 
of simplicity and beauty, the river clans smoked the 
peace-pipe or danced the war-dance, with whoops and 
halloos, and went forth with ^oaint and sharpened weapon 
to gather the scalps of the spoilers of their threshold. 

SILVER MINE ON THE LACKAWANNA. 

Of the value of precious metals the Indians knew little 
or nothing until taught it by the whites, and then, learn- 
ing to their dismay how fatal to their narrowing hunting- 
grounds were the aggressions of the expanding settle- 
ments, they practiced every possible caution in concealing 
all knowledge of mines and minerals in every portion o;' 
the wilderness. The Indian who, in thoughtless or 
drunken mood, betrayed the secret of their location, paid 
the penalty of his guilt by sudden death or lingering tor- 
ture. Yet about one hundred years ago the whites 
learned by treachery, and lost by misfortune, knowledge 
of a silver mine located about two miles up the Lacka- 
wanna from its mouth. 

In 1766 the Six Nations complained to tlie Proprietary 
Government at Philadelphia of white persons who liad 
dug into a silver mine, twelve miles above the Delaware 
town of Wy-wa-mick^ and carried away in canoes three 
loads of ore. An Indian trader named Anderson, who 
had brought a few goods up the river, was suspected of 
being the transgressor. 

John Teal, a German, who died some years ago at an 
advanced age, threw some additional liglit upon the loca- 
tion of this hidden silver mine. He had lived long 
enough with the wild tribes to understand their dialect. 



6i HISTORY OF THE 

and enjoy the confidence of an aged chief of the Oneidas, 
residing in western New York, who had assisted to efface 
every outward and visibh^ evidence of the existence of 
this mine. When the chieftain saw that his days were 
few, he called his friend Teal to his wigwam, to intrust 
him with secrets of no longer consequence to the Indian. 
He informed him that there were three salt springs, one 
sllrer, one gold, and one lead mine in the vicinity of 
Wyoming, and all used by them while in possession of 
the country. The silver mine, long known to the scat- 
tered tribes, was on the northeast side of the Lacka- 
wanna, above a high ledge or mountain, half an hour's 
walk from the River Susquehanna, twelve miles above 
Wyoming. After the first Wyoming massacre, in 1763. 
the dwellers in wigwams, hoping to retain occupancy for- 
ever of the rich plains, coveted by triple parties, used 
this mine to their advantage ; but when the intrudei-s 
again made their appearance in such formidable numbei's 
as to annihilate the long-cherished hope, the mine was so 
artfully concealed from the whites that none yet have 
found the spot yielding the precious metal. 

Traditions, treasured up by old settlers half a century 
ago, tell of an excavation in the bank of the Lackawanna, 
between Old Forge and the Barnum farm, similar to that 
described in the Pennsylvania Archives of 1766. 

That a silver mine was known and worked by the abo- 
rigines in tills vicinity, is unquestionably proved by the 
fact that official complaint was made by them of the 
depredations of Anderson, but its precise location remains 
at present in great doubt. 

GOLD MINE. 

The chief described the gold mine as being under a 
ledge of rocks, a few miles above Wyoming Valley, at a 
point where a rock of the height of an Indian covered a 
spring. 9 



LACKAWANNA VAI.LtY. 65 

Five miles westward from Scranton, in a direct line, on 
the western side of the mountain forming the boundary 
between the townships of Providence and Newton, rises 
a long ledge of rock known as Bald Mount, which, from 
its altitude, offers, when the day is clear, so wide a view 
of field, forest, and lake, that, in spite of the steep, zig- 
zag way of approaching it, has become, during the sum- 
mer hours, a popular resort for parties loving the romance 




TOP OF BAI 



of mountain life. At its very base lies the village of 
Mihvaukie, watered by a stream turned to good mill 
account before it enters the Susquehanna, five miles 
below. Eight or ten villages can be seen from the mount, 
which, shorn of its larger trees by the force of the wind 
sometimes sweeping over it Avith great fury, is left com- 
paratively bald, and thus given it a name. One large 
rock, prominent in position, is perforated with numerous 
holes of the capacity of from a quart to a gallon, as shown 
by the preceding illustration of Bald Mount. These were 
probably used by the Indian women for pounding their 



t)(5 HISTORY OF THE 

corn into samp. The large number of stone pestles found 
near it many years ago favor this theory. 

Under this precipice can be seen one large conglomerate 
rock, evidently removed some distance down the moun- 
tain by the natives to conceal the real origin of the spring. 
In the removal of this rock the trees, bent at the time, 
grew up with a very perceptible inclination toward it. 
From beneath its honest features emerges a spring, sur-' 
passed in the purity of its waters by no other in the 
world, where many metallurgists and others have sup- 
posed the gold mine was located. Explorations hitherto 
made upon every side of Bald Mount have failed to 
satisfy expectations naturally awakened by these tra- 
ditions. 

In 1778, a young man who had been captured by the 
savages in Wyoming Valley, was carried to the to}) of a 
mountain where the Wilkes Barre settlement could be 
seen in the distance. Here they built their camp-fire. A 
transaction took place at this time which, from its novel 
character, excited the surprise and ever afterward im- 
pressed the mind of the young, unharmed captive. A 
venerable chief, to whom the young man owed his safety, 
and subsequently his release, removed a large fiat stone 
covering the spring. The Avaters of this were so conveyed 
by a subterranean conduit, constructed for the purpose, as 
to deceive the men strolling through the wilderness in 
regard to the real source of the spring. At its mouth a 
roll of bark, forming a spout, was placed in such a man- 
ner as to direct the current into a handkerchief held under 
it by two of the Indians. For some moments the chief, 
reverently attended by the warriors, arrayed with bow 
and arrow, and forming a circle around him, stirred up 
the spring with a conscious knowledge of its gainful 
results. After an hour had elapsed, every stone pre- 
viously disturbed was restored to its former condition ; 
earth and leaves were left as if never tou(*hed, and no one, 
without ocular knowledge, would suspect the existence 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 07 

of a water-course. The handkerchief, covered with 
yelh)w sediment, was now lifted from the spout. The 
glittering product thus gathered by the chief was 
placed in a stone vessel with great care. After the fire 
was extinguished, and certain incantations performed 
with ceremonial exactness, the Indians left the spot in 
charge of the wild rock surrounding it, and resumed 
their march toward their land of maize among the 
lakes. 

Six days' walk led tlie party to Kingston, New York, 
where the treasures of the mountain, thus artfully 
obtained, were exchanged with the whites, for such 
articles as want or caprice suggested to the occupants of 
the forest. 

In after years the returned liero often related the inci- 
dent to his family and friends, some of whom thoroughly 
traversed every portion of Bald Mount and Campbell's 
Ledge without discovering the secret channel or the 
golden spring. 

SALT SPRINGS. 

The three salt springs were respectively located, one 
at Martin's Creek, one in the mountain gap between 
Providence and Abington, the other on the Nay-aug, 
about live miles from the junction of this stream with the 
Lackawanna at Capoose. The last-named one, manip- 
ulated by the Indians to come out of the bed of the 
brook, was considered by the wild tribes as the richest, 
as it yielded the largest quantity of salt with the least 
labor. When a knowledge of this spring first came to 
the white man, deer came hither in herds. Sometimes 
there were hundreds in a drove around these salt licks ; 
and it was rare during the spring or summer months not 
to find the buck or fawn cropping the wild grass growing 
luxuriantly around these briny places. In the upper 
part of Leggett's Gap, in the mountain west of Providence, 
there was a salt spring strongly impregnated with saline 



68 HISTORY OF THK 

properties. When the white adventurer first songlit the 
valley for his home, and found no luxury hut steak 
from the bear or haunch from the deer, and heard no 
voice but that issuing from the throat of the rihe, 
the waters of this spring were often sought to obtain 
the scarce and necessary salt. The warriors' patli 
from Oquago salt spring to Capoose passed by its 
waters. Much of the salt for the earliest settlers of 
the Lackawanna and Wyoming valleys was granulated 
here. 

Mr. Blackman, who was taken captive from Wyoming, 
relates of the Indians, that when salt became scarce, they 
went up the Lackawanna and returned the next day, 
loaded with the desired article, which was sometimes 
warm. From a knowledge of this spring, advantage was 
early taken by the hunter and trapper, for in such num- 
bers deer frequented this fountain to lap its waters, that 
they easily and often fell a ti'ophy to the woodsman's 
gun. 

A hunter of seventy winters tells the writer that, in 
his younger days, deer were so tame in the vicinity of 
this spring, that he has killed and dressed during his 
lifetime one hundred and forty-seven deer at this place 
alone ! 

That the natives frequented this place for the purpose^ 
of killing deer and curing venison, is satisfactorily proven 
by the quantity of warlike and domestic Indian relics- 
found immediately around it at an early day. 

LEAD MINE. 

Tuscarora Creek, a wild, clear, rapid stream, retaining 
its original Indian name, and lying between Meshoppen 
and Wyalusing, puts into the east side of tlie Susque- 
hanna, about thirty miles above the Lackawanna. Half 
a mile from its mouth, under a cliff leaning gloomily over 
a sharp bend of the stream, where the rocks go down 



LACKAWANNA VAIXEV. 69 

into the waters here deeper tli.iii at any other point, a 
lead mine was worked by the Indians lor making "bullets, 
after they had been tanglit the use of the rifle by the 
English and the French. Tlie Oneida chief informed 
Mr. Teal, that not only were the Wyoming Indians sup- 
plied with lead from this Tuscarora mine, but the French, 
while in harmony with the Iroquois, drew largely 
upon it. 

The Indian, in his wild dream of future hope, imposed 
silence so effectually upon the rock along the Tuscarora, 
that although several companies have exhausted large 
sums of money in attempting to discover the lost mine, 
no knowledge of its location is had other than that com- 
ing from Indian tradition. 

Tuscarora Creek has a sera]) of history of its own. 
The great war-path from Tioga down to Wyoming, 
crossed the mouth of this stream. It was in the certified 
townslii]) of Braintrim and county of Westmoreland. In 
1779, Gen. Sullivan, with his army, crossed the Tuscarora 
at this point. When his i-ear-guard had reached the 
south bank, wlierv a large mountain, covered with oak, 
with little or no underbrush intervening to obstruct the 
view for a great distance, conies down to the very stream, 
a body of savages were seen stealing down its side for 
the purpose of securing a few prisoners. Familiar with 
the mode of Indian warfare, the guards leaped behind the 
trees, affording them partial shelter. The Indians, niorr 
skilled in the art and advantage of woodside encountei-, 
as quickly betook themselves to the oak, which concealed 
even their presence, when the skirmish began. 

Soldiers fell, wounded or dead, without knowing from 
what particular quarter bullets issued. At length Mr. Elea- 
zer Carey, who saw his fellow-soldiers fall one after another, 
simultaneously with the crack of the rifle near by where 
he was standing, espied the dusky form of a Avarrior cau- 
tiously peering out from behind a tree not fifty yards from 
where he was standing, with his well -aimed u'un in liis 



70 HISTORY OF 'J'HE 

hand, bring down a soldier at each discharge of his weapon. 
After the Indian had reloaded, Carey, who had resolved 
to kill him if Dossible when he should attempt to shoot 
again, watched with intense solicitude tlie warrior's 
rifle as it was again brought beside the tree. No sooner 
had the slight projecting cheek and eye of the Indian 
come out so as to be discerned by Carey, when the aveng- 
ing bullet was sent forthwith into his brain. He gave 
one high leap, uttered one deep yell, and fell to rise no 
more. The Indians ran, caught up his body, and fled 
into the forest. 

So much for mines and springs, which some day may 
possibly have more interest than that given them by 
rumors and vague reco] lections of tradition. 

GENERAL HISTORY. 

The earliest history of the Lackawanna Valley is so in- 
terwoven with that of Wyoming, that, to present a faith- 
ful picture of one, material must be largely drawn upon 
the otheri In fact, while Wyoming in its limited sigiiiti- 
cation now gives a name to a valley unsurpassed for the 
beauty of its scenery or the romance of its history, it was 
formerly used in a more enlarged sense to designate all 
the country purchased by the New Enghmd men of the 
Indians in 1754, lying in what is now known as Luzerne, 
AX'yoming, Susquehanna, and Wayne counties. Thus 
the inhabitants of Providence, Salem, and Huntington, 
all comparatively remote from Wyoming Valle}-. were 
designated as " Wyoming Settlers,"^ and came under the 
disputed jurisdiction of Connecticut. 

In 1752, the cabin of no white man had broken the 
Wyoming forest. After a casual reconnoissance along its 
eastern border by the hunter, made with indefinite knowl- 
edge of the character of the plain occupied by Teedyus- 
cung and Backslnosa^ a Monsey chief at Capoose, and 

' Miner. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 71 

reported witli glowiiiii; exaggeration to adventurous men 
living in Hartford desiring to develop the western por- 
tion of their possessions, ''a number of persons, princi- 
pally inhabitants of Connecticut, formed themselves into 
a company for the purpose of purchasing the Susque- 
hanna lands of the Indians, and forming a settlement at 
Wyoming. This association was called the " Susquehan- 
na Company^ and during the same j^ear, 1753, they sent 
out commissioners to explore the contemplated territory, 
and to establish a friendly intercourse with such Indian 
tribes as should be found in possession of it."^ These 
facts, carried to Philadelphia by Indian scouts and inter- 
preters, alarmed the Proprietar}- Government of Pennsyl- 
vania, which also claimed this wild tract yet unlocked by 
any Indian treaty, grant, or title to any party. Daniel 
Broad head and William Parsons, two justices of the 
peace in Lower Smithfield Township, Northampton Coun- 
ty, on the war-path from Connecticut to Wyoming, were 
instructed by Pennsylvania to watch all persons and par- 
ties going hither either to explore or begin a settlement. 

In fact no inland point within the province was watched 
with greater solicitude or devotion through many years 
of strange vicissitude than was Wyoming. The deep, 
broad Susquehanna coming down through the magnificent 
highlands and mountains from the wood-rimmed lakes of 
New York, carrying its flood sometimes rudely over its 
banks where the cabin-dwellers roamed in no doubtful 
security, gave to a valley naturally beautiful all the 
needed charms to captivate the Indian or allure the eye 
of the white man. Alive with moose, bear, and deer, 
fluttering with the wild turkey or the more gentle quail, 
the woods expanded into forest far extending in every 
direction of the compass, while water-fowl, and fish of 
every hue and variety— especially the shad- animated 
the river and all its winding tributaries. 

' Chapmnii, p. 51. 



72 HISTORY OF THE 

Its possession was a prize as earnesLy sought aftvr by 
one party as it was sternly resisted by the other. Al- 
though no actual settlement had been instituted hei-e by 
the NeAv England people, yet it did not prevent the pro- 
vincial authorities of Pennsylvania from exhibiting extra- 
ordinary vigilance and exertion to prevent even a pur- 
chase or survey of a valley so rich in agricultural pros- 
pects. James Hamilton, "Governor of Pennsylvania 
under the Proprietaries, having been informed of the in- 
tentions of the Susquehanna Company, considered it 
proper that immediate measures should be taken to defeat 
those intentions, and to purchase the land for the use of 
the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania,"^ as the Attorney- 
General of Pennsylvania, to whom it had been referred, 
had decided " that this tract of land (Wyoming) had not 
yet heen purchased of the Six Nations (Indians), but has 
hitherto been reserved, and is now used by them for their 
hunting-grounds."- Sir William Johnson, his Majest\"s 
Indian agent for the colony, residing at Albany, in a let- 
ter dated March 20, 1754, was informed of the contem- 
plated purchase, and requested to see "that nothing may 
be done with the Indians by the Connecticut agents, or 
any other in their behalf, to the injury of the Proprieta- 
ries of this Province." ^ 

It should be understood by the general reader, that all 
lands claimed by the English in America were sold oi- 
granted to one or more persons with an understanding 
that the right, or rather the necessity still existed of re- 
purchasing the same territory of the Indian tribes having 
ownership, before it could safely be occupied by the 
whites. Thus a portion of the land granted to William 
Penn by King Charles II., March 11, 1681, was repur- 
chased by him of the native tribes in a manner so explicit 
and satisfactory to them that ever afterward his inter- 



1 Chapman, p. 52. ^Opinion, French Francis, March 18, 1754. 

' Penusylvaaia Arcliives, 1754. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 73 

-course witli all the aborigines was marked by a constant 
and unvarying friendship unknown in modern times. To 
thus purchase Wyoming lands/ as well as to conciliate 
the good-will of the Indians, already excited by the 
bloody drama alternately played by the English or the 
French, "orders were received from England directing 
the colonies to hold a general treaty with the Indians at 
Albany in 1754, and to form, if possible, such an alliance 
with them as would insure theii- friendship and the safety 
of his Majesty's possessions in AmeiHca."" By runners 
and messengers, young, swift, and ambitious, the wish 
of his Majesty's Government was announced to the vari- 
ous tribes interested and remote, and all assembled at 
Fort Stanwix (now Rome), in July. 1754. 

As there was no known printed copy of any charter 
in America,^ the real boundaries of the royal grant Avas 
understood by few or none, yet the authorities of Penn- 
sylvania, believing at this time that Wyoming was within 
her territorial limits, anticipated and resisted the efforts 
of the Connecticut people, or the Yankees as they were 
termed, by every art of diplomacy and every mode of 
warfare. 

John and Richard Penn, Isaac aS'orris, and Benjamin 
Franklin, were appointed by Pennsylvania as Commis- 
sioners to represent the interests of the Province, and 
true to their instructions from Governor Hamilton, these 
eminent gentlemen held private conferences with the Six 
Nations, with a vieAv of securing Wyoming lands, in 
whicli they failed. 

July 11, 1754, for a consideration of two thousand 
pounds. New York currency, the "chiefs, sachems, and 
heads of the Five Nations of Indians, called the Iroquois, 
and the native proprietors of a large tract of land on, 
about, and adjacent to the River Susquehannali, and 

' When Wyoming is spoken of in relation to lands, Adjouqua or Lackawanna 
Valley is of course included within its meaning. 

''Chapman, p. 51. ' 'Trumbull. 



74 HISTORY OF THE 

being within the limits and bounds of the charter, and 
grant of his late Majesty, King Charles 2nd, to the Colo- 
nys of Connecticutt," sold to the Susquehanna Company 
Wyoming lands bounded as follows: "Beginning from 
the one and fortieth degree of north latitude, at ten 
miles east of the river to the end of the forty-second or 
beginning of the forty-third degree of north latitude, 
and so to extend west two degrees of longitude one 
hundred and twenty miles, and from thence south to- 
the beginning of tlie forty-second degree, and from 
thence east to the aforementioned boundrie, which is 
ten miles east of Suskahanna River, together with all 
and every the mines, minerals, or ore, &c." ^ All the ter- 
ritory lying between this line ten miles east of the Susque- 
hanna and the Delaware River, was purchased by the 
Delaware Company, so that the lands of the Lackawanna 
Valley were embraced respectively in the purchases of 
the two companies. The townships of Pittson, Lacka- 
wanna, Providence, Newton, and a portion of Abington, 
were thus embraced within the Susquehanna purchase ; 
while Covington, Springbrook, Madison, Jefferson, Scott, 
and Blakeley, Avitli their vast array of thrifty villages, 
and the neighboring counties of Wayne and Pike, Sus- 
quehanna, and a portion of Monroe, were alike included 
by the Delaware Indian purchase. 

The Proprietary Government, astonished and chagrined 
at a purchase it failed by the ingenious persuasions of 
her ablest representatives to thwart, began to suggest 
measures of practical severity to rid the valley of the 
Yankee intruders, should they venture upon their new 
purchase. It was not enough that the wolf crouched 
along the pathway to Wyoming, or that the savage, 
homeless and enraged, crossed the westward path where 
the French and Indian wars had strewn the dead to appall 
the adventurer. 

' See Pa. Arch., 1748-1756, pp. 147-158, for original copy of deed, with names, 
of purchasers. 



LACKAWANNA VALLKV. ib 

Early in February, 1754, a few iiiontlis previous to 
this sale, Wm. Parsons, of Lower Smithfield, notified 
Governor Hamilton that "some of his near neighbors had 
accompanied tliree gentleman-like men to Wyomink, 
who produced a writing undei- a large seal, empowering 
them to treat and agree with such persons as were dis- 
posed to take any of these lands of them."^ He also 
informed the Governor " that it may be tlie means of 
occasioning very great disorder and disturbances in the 
back parts of the province." Persons living in Lower 
Smithfield Township, near Strondsburg, holding lands 
under the Proprietary direction and authority, looked 
so favorably on the proposed settlement of Wyoming 
lands, that Daniel Broadhead, Esq., then prominent in 
the history of Northampton County, as the name is yet 
in that section of country, wrote to Governor Hamilton, 
February 24, 1754, that "there has been and is, great 
disquietude amongst the people of these parts, occasioned 
by some New England gentlemen, to such a degree 
that they are all, or the majority of them, going to quit 
or sell their lands for trifles, and to my certain knowl- 
edge, many of them have advanced money on such 
occasions, in order that they might secure rights from 
the New England Proprietaries, which right I suppose 
is intended to be on Sasquehannah at a place called 
Wyomink."^ 

The Provincial Council of Pennsylvania recommend- 
ed Governor Hamilton to write to the Governor of 
Connecticut, "to stop the departure of their people on 
a dangerous enterprise as this," and "forthwith dis- 
patch Conrad Weiser to the Six Nations and those at 
Wyoming, to put them upon their guard against those 
proceedings."^ Governor Fitch replied that he "knew 
nothing of any thing being done by the Government 
to countenance such a proceeding as you intimate, and 

1 Col. Rec, vol. v., p. 73G. ' Ibid., p. 757. " Ihid., p. 758. 



76 HISTORY or thk 

as I conclude, is going on among some of our people.'' 
Mr. Armstrong reported to the Government, "that the 
people of Connecticut are most earnestly and seriously 
determined to make a settlement on the Susquehanna, 
within the latitude of the province, relying on the 
words of their grants, which extend to the 8outh 8ea^ 
provided that tliey can succeed in a purchase of these lands 
from the Six Nations, which they are now attempting 
hj the means of Colonel Johnson and Mr. Lydias of 
Albany, having subscribed a thousand pieces of eight 
for that purpose, each giving four dollars for what they 
call a Right." ^ 

Under date of December 2, 1754, five months after 
the successful negotiations for Wyoming. James Alex- 
ander wrote to Governor Morris that he believed tliat 
"more vigorous measures will be wanting to nip this 
affair in the bud, than writing to governoi's and magis- 
trates, or employing a few rangers, as I before proposed. 
I question if less will do, than a superior number to the 
Connecticut men, women, and children, that come, andbn'/iy/ 
ihem to PhiladelpMa ; the women and children to ship off 
to Governor Fitch, the men to imprison till hailed or list 
for Olilo,^ this done tioice or tJirice will terrify others 
from coming ; and one or two thousand pounds laid 
now out in this service, may save scores of thousands 
that it may afterwards cost. I doubt not, Connecticut 
will amuse and give good words till a great number 
be settled, and then bid defiance."^ 

Every movement in Hartford, where the interests of 
these two companies were discussed publicly and freely, 
was watched by persons employed by Pennsylvania 
to do so, who, in December, 1754, reported the pros- 
pects and development of the organization to Governor 

' Col. Rec, vol. v., pp. 773-4. 

" A very humane way to dispose of peaceful settlers, to have them enlist \u the 
French and Indian war on the Ohio 1 
' Col. Rec, vol. vi.. p. 267. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. « i 

Murris, thus: "There was a great iiireting about a fort- 
night ago in Hartford, of the people concerned in the 
design' d. The original shares are six hundred. The 
sclieme stood thus. They made a purse, each man pay- 
ing four dollars towards the purchase, &c., but since 
that they have [been] obliged to pay five more, so that 
the original shares of the purchase 'tis nine dollars a 
man. These sharers engaged to go themselves, or to 
procure one to go in their stead to the Sasquehannah, 
and there to make a settlement, build a building, clear 
so much land, &c., on their respective lots in a given 
time. The grand emigration does not propose to go forth 
till all be quietly settled, but in the mean time, 'tis said 
there will be some individuals going. "^ 

In spite of talks and treaties, W}'oming, full of natives 
reluctant to yield possession of their plain to the spoiler 
of their heritage, remained unpeopled and untouched 
by the whites. Even some of the Cayuga Indians, 
seduced into French interests, inimical to the English, 
hearing that "a lot of people from New England had 
formed themselves into a body to settle the lands on 
Susquehanna, and especially Sea-hau-toioano (Wyoming) 
threatened, if they done so, to first kill all their creatures, 
and then if they did not desist, they themselves would 
all be killed, without distinction, let the consequence s 
be what it would."^ This threat of " Tachnechdorus, the 
chief of Smamockin, of the Cayiuker," was carried into 
execution at Wyoming a few years later, when the first 
settlement here was destroj^ed, the emigrants shot and 
scalped by the same band that murdered Teedyuscung in 
his Susquehanna wigwam. 

The colony of Connecticut, aware of the extent of their 
original grant, and conscious of the integrity of the 
Indian purchase of Wyoming by the Susquehanna Com- 



' Col. Rec, vol. vi., pp. 207-8. 

' Pennsylvania Archives, 174S-1756, pp. 259- 



78 HISTORY OF THE 

pany, gave consent to establish a settlement here. In 
the summer of 1755 the company "'sent out a number of 
persons to Wyoming, accompanied by their surveyors 
and agents, to commence a settlement. On their arrival, 
they found the Indians in a state of war with the English 
colonies ; and the news of the defeat of General Braddock 
having been received at Wyoming, produced such an 
animating effect upon the Nanticoke tribe of Indians, 
that the members of the new colony would probably 
have been retained as prisoners had it not been for the inter- 
ference of some of the principal chieftains of the Delaware 
Indians, and particularly of Tedeuscund, who retained 
their attachment to their Christian brethren of the Mora- 
vian church, and their friendship in some degree for the 
English. The members of the colony, consequently, 
returned to Connecticut, and the attempt to form a set- 
tlement at Wyoming was abandoned until a more favor- 
able opportunity."^ 

The efforts of the Moravian missionaries from Gnaden- 
hutten and Bethlehem, to introduce Christian influences 
along the foliage of the Indian forest, were not altogethe 
in vain. At Machwihilusing (Wyalusing)^ a settlement 
had been made by these zealous and determined German 
brethren, under the pastorship of the Rev. David Zeis- 
berger, which flourished through all the intermediate In- 
dian wars and massacres up until 1770, when, as the 
territory occupied by them had been sold to the Connec- 
ticut people, the Moravians removed to Ohio, to whither 
the Dela wares had preceded them. Living on the great 
canoe-route and war-path from Onondaga to Wyoming, 
these heroic missionaries, who had sacrificed every social 
comfort for the stern incidents of border life, with no 
ambition but the good and welfare of the race they sought 
to elevate, were left unharmed by the warriors desolating 
the country around them. 

' Chapman, p. 65. * Heckewelder. 



l-ACKA WANNA VALLEY. 79 

The Colonial Records give an account of a council held 
July 11, 1760, with a large number of Minisinks. Nanti- 
cokes, and Delawares, "from an Indian town called Mlcli- 
alloasen or Wighalooscon, about fifty or sixty miles above 
Wyomink, on the Susquehannah,"^ but while it was visited 
by these missionaries, previous to this it was iwt chosen 
by them for a permanent abode until May 9, 1765. 
" Having fixed on a convenient spot for a settlement, they 
immediately began to erect a town, which, when com- 
pleted, consisted of thirteen Indian huts, and upward of 
forty houses built of wood, in the European manner, 
besides a dwelling for the missionaries. In the middle of 
the street, which was eighty feet broad, stood a large and 
neat chapel. The adjoining lands were laid out into neat 
gardens ; and between the town and the river, about two 
hundred and fifty acres were divided into regular planta- 
tions of Indian corn. The burying-ground was situated 
at some distance back of the buildings. Each family liad" 
its own boat. To this place they gave the name of Frie- 
denshuetten (Huts of Peace). This new settlement soon 
assumed a ver}^ flourishing appearance."^ 

The Wyalusing Indians exhibited toward the whites 
with whom they came in contact a conciliatory and Chris- 
tian disposition. At a council held at the State House in 
Philadelphia, September 17, 1768, John Curtis spoke for 
the Wyalusing Indians as follows : — 

"Brothers : — After the treaty, two years ago, as the In- 
dians were returning home, a Delaware was killed. As 
soon as the news reached the Indian country, some of his 
relations were so exasperated, that four of them immedi- 
ately set ofl" and came down Avith an intention to kill some 
of the white folks. On their way they called at Wigha- 
lousin and stopt there. When they informed us of their 
design, the Indians of Wighalousin, men, women, and 
children, did all in their power to dissuade them from it, 

' Col. Rec. vol. viii., p. 484. ' Christian Library. 



80 HISTORY OF THE 

and joined in a collection of wampum^ and delivered it 
to them to pacify them, on which they returned home."" 

Nor was the Lackawanna part of Wyoming without its 
spiritual advisers as early as October 26, 1755. At the 
request of the friendly Indiaas living on the Susquehanna 
and Lee-Tcaugh-Tiunt (Lackawanna), the Moravian mis- 
sionaries of Bethlehem visited Wyoming at this time 
(to use the Indian's own phrase), "to speak words to them 
of their God and Creator as often as they desire it."^ 

They remained six days at " Waioming, the Shawanese 
town, and at LecJcaweTce, the Minising town." They 
preached twice at LecTcawelce,* where they found the 
natives enjoying their yearly thanksgiving harvest-feast 
with song and dance, interpolating their songs with an 
occasional yell or war-whoop, secure in their corn-fields 
and "well affected towards the English,"^ to whom they 
gave every outward assurance of friendship. Twenty- 
eight days after this, Gnadenhutten was devastated, 
and no white settlement in Pennsylvania, above Bethle- 
hem, escaped wholly from the uplifted tonialiawk. The 
Indian town of Nescopicken (Nescopick), one day's jour- 
ney from Wyoming, became tlie head-quarters of the 
French and Indians.^ Not a single white person lived in 
either of the valleys of Wyoming or Lackawanna. The 
Indians, won over by the shrewdness of tlie French, bent 
on conquest and carnage, went even below the Blue Moun- 
tains to the Tulpehocking, within thirty miles of Philadel- 



' Wampum or Wanipon, called also Wampampeag; a kind of money in use 
among the Indians. It was a kind of bead made of shells of the great conch, 
muscle, &c.. and curiously wrought and polished, with a hole throiigli them. They 
were of different colors, as black, blue, red and white, and purple ; the last of 
which were wroujfht by the Five Nations. Six of the white, and three of the 
black or blue passed for a penny — TrLunbuU's IT. S., vol. i., p. 23. In 1667, Wampon 
was made a tender by law for the payment of debts, "not excee<iing 40 shillings, 
at 8 white or 4 black for a penny; this was repealed in 1671." — Douglas, vol. i., 
p. 437. 

^ Pa. Arch., 1760. ' Ibid.. 1755, p. 492. 

' Either Aasarughney, Capoose, or an Indian town at the Lackawack. 

' I'a. Arch., 175.5, pp. 159-60 •Ibid.. l^SB, p. 558 



LACK AW ANN* VALLEY. 81 

pliia, unresisted. Along the Delaware, from Easton to 
Broadhead' s, the country was absolutely deserted. Broad- 
head' s place was attacked, and bravely defended by the 
courageous inmates. In fact;, Lower Smithfield, where 
Broadhead' s clearing was located, was so constantly 
threatened by the arrowed warriors, that Benjamin Frank- 
lin, in July, 1756, ordered a company of foot to be raised 
'•of fifty able men to protect the inhabitants while they 
thresh out and secure their corn," and scout from time 
to time for one month, and " for pay, to receive six dollars 
per month, and one dollar extra for use of gun and 
blanket." The men were notified that if they should kill 
any Indians while thus ranging, "forty dollars will be 
allowed and paid by the Government/o/' each scalp of an 
Indian so killed."^ This is the first recorded instance 
where a premium was offered for scalps in the vicinity of 
Wyoming.- No fortunes, however, where made by scalp 
gatherers. 

xifter Braddock's memorable defeat in July, 175o, the 
whole frontier of Pennsylvania was left so destitute of 
protection, that several friendly Indim chiefs of the Sus- 
quehanna tribes visited Philadelphia, and urged upon the 
Government the importance of building such places of 
defense, which if they failed to do all the tribes now 
peaceably inclined, would raise the hatchet as auxiliaries 
of the exultant French. This prudent advice, however, 
was not taken until after the Lehigh village of Gnaden- 
hutten had been obliterated by the torch, when a chain 
of simple forts or block-houses were erected along the 
Susquehanna and Delaware. It is impossible at the pres- 
ent day, to ascertain the exact location of these forts. 
"Those west- ward of the Sasquehana," the Pennsylvania 
Archives inform us, "are about twenty miles asunder, 
and those between Sasquehana and Delaware about 

' Pa. Arch., 1756, p. 516. 

' As early as 1689, in the beginning of King Philip's war, one hundred pound* 
was oflFered for Indian scalps by New p]ngl;ind oflBciaJs. 



82 HISTOKY OF THE 

ten." The fort at Shamokin was built in July, 1755, from 
logs huge and liewn. Fort Allen, at Gnadenhutten, was 
built in January, 1756. The fort at Wyoming and the one 
asked for at Adjouquay by the Iroquois chiefs were erect- 
ed the same year.^ These forts were strongly built, stock- 
aded, and of ample capacity to accommodate the sparsely 
settled places around them in any exigency. From 
twenty to fifty men were stationed in these protecting out- 
posts, until after the treaty of 1758 fulfilled the expecta- 
tions of peace, when many of them were abandoned. The 
warriors at Tioga and Wyoming and Lackawanna weiv 
estimated at this time at seven hundred, fifty of whom 
were Monseys, at Capoose. 

Ciishietunck (Cochecton), on the upper Delaware, was 
settled by the Delaware Company in 1767, which place, 
in spite of colonial feuds, or Pennymite resistance, pros- 
pered in its aspirations and development. Cochecton, 
like Wyoming, was claimed by Pennsylvania as "lying 
in the upper part of Northampton County, opposite the 
Jersey Station Point," and the same vexatious measures 
employed in one place were also used in the other to 
expel the New England comers. 

A mere glimpse of this section of country as it appeared 
to Charles Tomson. and Christian Frederic Post, who 
journeyed toward Wyoming and Lee-haw-hanna in 1758, 
by order of the Governor of Pennsylvania, and at the 
request of the Indians, is interesting in an historical light, 
as reflecting the shadows of one hundred and ten years 
ago. These Indian civilizers left Philadelphia, June 7, 
1768, and in two days reached Fort Allen, on the Lehigh, 
where they engaged Moses Tetaniy and Isaac Still, and 
three other Indians, to accompany them. 

"On Sunday morning we set forward pretty early, and 
by 12 o'clock reached the Nescopekun Mountain, within 
fourteen or fifteen miles of A¥yoming. Here we met nine 

» Pa. Arch.. 1748-1756. 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 83 

Indians traveling down to Bethlehem. They had left 
Wyoming the day before, and had been six days fi'ora 
Chenango, a Town of the Nanticokes on Susquehanna, 
about half way between Owegey and Ossewingo. There 
was one Nanticoke, one Monsey Captain, one Delaware, 
four Mawliiccons, and two Squaws. Upon meeting them, 
we stopped and inquired the news, and from several 
questions asked, we learned that Teedyuscung was well 
and at Wyoming, that all was quiet among the Nan- 
ticokes, that their principal men were at the Council at 
Onondaga, which was not yet broke up ; that Back- 
sinosa was at Lee-liaug?i-?iunt (Lackawanna), but that he 
was pre paling to go somewhere, he said to his own 
Country. Being informed of our going to Wyoming with 
good news to all the Indians, they told us that they 
thought it was by no means safe for us to proceed ; that 
strange Indians were thick in the woods about Wyoming; 
lh It a party was seen but four days ago whose Language 
none of the Delawares there undei'stood, nor did they 
know of what Nation they were. This alarmed our In- 
dians, they pressed us to turn back with this Company-, 
iind make all haste for Fort Allen, and two of them would 
go and invite Teedyuscung to come to us there. Tliis we 
objected to, on account of losing time, so we proposed to 
go forward to the Wyoming Hills, and there Avait till two 
of our Company went forward and informed Teedyuscung 
of our coming, and know of him whether it would be 
safe to go to the Town, The Indians we met thought it 
dangerous to proceed any farther, as they had seen fresh 
Tracks crossing the Path in two or three places between 
this and Wyoming, and at one place not half a mile from 
where we then were. Upon this it was proposed and 
agreed upon, to go back to the east side of the Hills, and 
there lodge to-night, till two of our Indians went and 
invited Teedyuscung to come to us. Next day Teedyus 
cung came to us.''^ After a long talk and dinner with 

• Pa. Arch., 1758. pp. 412-22. 



84 HISTORY OF THK 

Teedyuscung and otlier chiefs, fi-ora the valley, they were 
made familiar with all the news, rumors, and complaint-; 
of the Indians, and sent back, as Teedyuscung assured 
them that it was absolutely unsafe for them to venture 
farther. They also reported that "Backsinosa, with 
about one hundred men, lives yet at Lee-haugh-hunt" ^ 
'Lackawanna), at Assarughney, a place of so much import- 
.,^oe that a friendly Indian who passed there a few days 
previous, " saw four Canoes made of bark, and two Floats 
there hid in the bushes,"" which he learned had just been 
used by a party coming from Broadhead's, by the way of 
Lee-haugh-hunt and Capoose 

After the purchase of Wyoming lands in 1754 by the 
Connecticut Susquehanna Company, Pennsylvania awak- 
ened to the importance of cultivating more intimate rela- 
tions with the Indians. Teedyuscung was informed by 
the Provincial Council, that '•^hls continuance at Wio- 
ming is of great service." ^ The natives being too lazy or 
too little skilled in agricultural affairs to supply their 
Avigwams with vegetable food, brought it in canoes from 
Fort Augusta, sixty miles below, thus often exhausting the 
supply around Sunbury and Northumberland. In May. 
1755, the Indians on the Susquehanna were reported 
starving because of the scarcity of deer.* To obviate this, 
as well as to carry out the policy instituted by Pennsyl- 
vania, "fifty or sixty Carpenters, Masons, and Laborers, 
were sent to Wyoming to build and plant for the Indians. 
After a very fatiguing march they arrived at Wyoming on 
the 22d May, 1758, and put the hands to work the next 
day. As the Battoes did not arrive from Fort Augusta. 
<e time appointed, we were brought to very short 
allowance in provisions, «&c. For several days we had no 
oread at all, which created no little uneasiness among the 
^nen. We kept working until the 27th, when Joseph 



' Pa. Arch., 1758, p. 421. ' CoL Rec, vol. viii., p. 127. 

* Ibid., p. 138. * Pa. Arcli., 175S, p. 310. 



LACKAWANNA VALI.KY. 00 

Croker, one of our masons, was killed and scalped by six 
of the enemy Indians ; this misfortune made our men 
uneasy. The next day, the Battoes arrived with provi- 
sions, which enabled us to carry on the work and finish 
ten houses. We also plowed some ground for them to 
plant in, and split some rails to fence it ; after which they 
thought it proper to let us know that it was late in the 
season, and the grass grown very high, so that the ground 
when plowed was not fit for planting but in a few places, 
such as old Towns and the like, we might return until a 
more favorable time, which we complied with on Fridaj', 
the 2d June, and got safe Tuesday evening following."^ 

On the same day that this pai'ty returned to Fort 
Augusta, Moses Tetamy and Isaac Still, both Indian inter- 
preters, left Philadelphia to visit tlie Monseys at Mini- 
sinks, for the Government. The fourth day's journey b}- 
the way of the warriors' path over the Lehigh Mountain, 
brought them to Wyoming, where they were welcomed 
and treated with great consideration as public messengers. 
After staying all night at Wyoming, they left early in the 
moi-ning on horseback, and at night "came to Tenkgha- 
nake (Tunkhannock), about as far above Wyoming us 
from Wyoming to Fort Allen. This is an old Town, no- 
body lives there, but over the river we saw some Minisink 
Indians, Hunters, who called to us, and when Ave Avent 
over treated us kindly, and gave us some Bear meat and 
venison. The road from Wyoming to Tenghanaoke is 
broken and billy. ""- 

The Western Indians held a great council over the Ohio 
in June, 1760. Frederic Post and John Hays attempted to 
accompany Teedyuscung thither, but the two interpreters 
were denied passage through the Seneca country. A descrip- 
tion of their journey through Wyoming, as given in the 
words of their journal, can not fail to interest very many : — 

"Saturday, May 10. — Heassie Avetlier : Sett off from 

• Col. Rec, vol. viii., pp. 134-5. ' Pa. Arcli., 1756, p. 509. 



86 HISTOKY OF THE 

fort Allen at Eight o'Ch^ck, and traveled till it was Late 
through a vast Desei-t ; Lodged in the Woods. 

"Sunday, 11th. — Sett to the way Early and Arived at 
Wioming in the Evening, where we were Informed that 
Teedyuscung was Set off on his Journey this Morning, 
but they sent for him Imediately on our Coming. 

''Monday, 12th. — Teedyuscung Came home About 
Eleven o' Clock, and we had several Conferences with him 
this Day. 

-'Tuesday, 13th.— Wrought at Makeing Belts and 
Sti'ings of our Wampum, was used very Kindly, and 
talked of Going Next Day. 

" Wed'y, 14th. — Very Eainy Wether, so that we 
Could not set out, So we followed our old Business of 
Belt making. 

" Thursday, 15th.— AVether the Same: Made Belts. 

"Friday, 16th. — Designed Going, but Teedyuscun<; 
would not Go until he had a field of Corn ]3lanted first, 
and we all asisted him and planted it this Day. 

" Satturday, 17th. — Set of Early and traveled smartly. 
Crossed a Large Creek about one o' Clock, called Ah-la- 
lion-ie (Lackawanna?), and so followed Our Coui'se up tlie 
East Side of the Sisquhana River till Night, and Set up 
our tents in an Old Indian Town called Quelooiaino. Be- 
ing fourteen in Number in all. 

"Sunday, 18th, — Wet Weather, Nevertheless wh trav- 
eled Smartly Cross a very Large Creek called Wa^h-co- 
k'nig (Meshoppen), Lodged on the Banks of Sisquhana, 
and had a very Wet Night of it. 

"Monday, 19th. — Set off Early, tho wet, and Arived at 
a town called Qui-ha-loo-sing (Wyalusing), the Gov- 
enours Name Wampoonham, a very Religious Civilized 
man in his own way, and Shewd us a great Deal of 
Kindness, and we held a Conference with him this 
Evening, and when over, Mr. Post Gave us a Sermon, at 
tlieir Request. 

"Tuesday, 20th. — They Called us to Council, and 



LACKAWANNA VALI-EY. 87 

seemed to be very friendly, and Delivered to Teedynscung 
three prisoners By a string and promised to bring 
them Soon down ; this town is Situated on Sisqnhana, 
East side, about twenty Houses full of People, Very Good 
Land, and Good Indian Buildings, all New ; had Sermon 
this Evining again. 

"Wednsday, 21st. — They told us there was another 
prisnor in this town, but the man that had hir would 
not Consent to Give hir Up yet, but if he Did not 
he Should Leave their town ; We Set off about Eleven 
o'clock, and Crossed Qui-ha-loo-sing Creek about a mile 
above the town ; We traveled Through Swamps, Rocks, 
and Mountains about 15 Miles, then came to the River, 
and took up Lodging on the Bank." 

Thursday and Friday they visited Diohaga, Snake Hole, 
and Asinsan. At the last-named place "the Indians 
Beuan to Sacrifice to their God, and Spent the Day in 
a very Odd manner. Howling and Danceing, Raveling 
Like Wolves, and Painted frightfull as Divels. 

"Monday, 26th. — The Indians, Haveing Got Rum, Got 
Drunk, all in General, Except some old men ; and Teedy- 
nscung Behaved well on this Occasion, for when his Sone 
brought in the Kegg of Rum, he would not taste it ; we 
were very much Abused and Scolded by the Indians, and 
thretened Often to Host us. They Bid us Welcome to this 
town, but if we came any farther they would Rost us in 
the fire. 

" There was a great Sacrifice of a hogg, which gathered 
a Great Number of them together, and after their Sacrifi- 
cial Rites were over, they Encouraged us to Go on, But 
we Could not See it Clear, for the old father Mingo always 
Sent us word not Go, but that Teedynscung and his In- 
dians Might Go, but that we should not Go, noi- any 
White man Should pas through their Countiy." 

After visiting various Indian towns, witnessing deer 
sacrifices, and holding councils witli the Delawares, Won- 
amies, and Monseys, they conclude! to leturn home, as 



88 HISTOUY OF THE 

the old Indian ''agreement was that no white man Should 
]^as throw their Country, for fear of Spyes to see their 
Land." 

The fertile meadows now extending at certain intervals 
along the river from Binghamton to Tunkhannock, they 
describe as "an Ordinary Country, Nothing but Moun- 
tains and Rocks and pine timber, save the Small Low 
lands the Indians plants their Corn on." 

On the ninth day of the homeward journey, interlined 
by many vexations and delays, and lodging in the woods, 
where " the Knates Bit so hard," they approached Wyo- 
ming. ' ' About Eleven o' Clock we came to a narrow 
pass where the horses, with Hight of the River, was 
obliged to Swime a considerable way, and had to all get 
in the Canoo, then took our horses again and had to Swim 
another Large Creek and Climbe many a hill, but at 
Lenth we Got to Weoming, thank God. 

" Saturday, 28th. — Set of from Weoming and traveled 
Over the Mountains, and Lodged in the Woods, and had 
very wet Weather," &c., &c.^ 

In April, 1761, before the snow-drifts had melted from 
the cold gorges of the mountain, the route had been sui'- 
veyed by a party which " marked trees for twenty miles 
from the Delaware in the way toward Snsquehannah, 
and laid out lots for a town at a place called LeigJiwack- 
son, or Lackervak, about eight miles westward from 
Casheitunck."" Teedyuscung himself visited Philadel- 
phia during this month, to express to the Governor his 
uneasiness about this settlement, which he reported was 
so unsafe for his pale brother "that they (the Connecti- 
cut men) Kept continual watch for fear the Indians would 
shoot them."' 

In August, 1762, the adventurous spirit of New England 
emigration began to move toward Wyoming with greater 
success than ever before. A few miles below the village 

' Pa. Arch., 1760, pp. 735-41. ^ Col. Rec, vol. viii., p. 614. ^ Ibid., p. 595. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 89 

of Assariighney, and a mile or two above the Indian 
town at Wyoming-, runs into the Snsquelianna a short, 
sluggish creek, celebrated afar by the name of Mill Creek. 

Two hundred persons from the colony of Connecticut 
began a settlement on the shaded margin of this stream at 
this time. " They found the valley covered with woods, 
except a few acres in the immediate vicinity of the Shaw- 
anese and Wyoming towns, which had been improved by 
the Indians in the cultivation of their corn, and which 
was still in part occupied by them."^ A few acres of land 
was cleared and sown with wheat and rye, after which the 
emigrants concealed their agricultural implements in the 
ground and returned to Connecticut to winter, returning 
in the spring. 

Teedyuscung, jealous of his plains yielding Avith the 
simple tillage of the squaws, again visited Philadelphia, 
Nov. 19, 1762, and sought a private interview with the 
■Governor, to complain of the settlement upon Lec-ha- 
wanock Creek. The Govei-nor desired Teedyuscung to 
^peak nothing but the honest truth, which he promised to 
do, and then addressed him as follows : — " Brother : You 
may remember that some time ago I told you that I should 
be obliged to remove from Wyomink on account of the New 
England people, and I now acquaint you that soon after 
I returned to Wyomink from Lancaster, there came 150 
-of those people, furnished with all sorts of Tools, as well 
for building as Husbandry, and declared that they had 
bought those Lands from the Six Nations, and would set 
tie them, and were actually going to build themselves 
Houses, and settle upon a creek called Leckmoan.oclx., 
about seven or eight miles above Wyomink. I threatened 
them hard, and declared I would carry them to the Gov- 
ernor at Philadelphia ; and when they heard me tlireaten 
them in this manner, they said they would go away and 
consult their own Governor ; for if they were carried to 

' Chipman. 



dO HI6T0KY OF THE 

Philadelpliia, they might be detained there Seven Years, 
and they said further, that since the Indians were uneasy 
at this purchase, if they would glde tliejii hack the money 
it had cost them, which was one or two Bushels of Dol- 
lars, they would give them their Lands again. Ten days 
after these were gone, there came other fourteen men, and 
made us the same speeches, declaring that tliey expected 
above three thousand would come and settle the Wyo- 
mink Lands in the Spring, and they had with them a Saw 
and Saw-Mill Tools, proposing to go directly and build a 
Saw-Mill about a mile above where T live, but upon my 
threatening those in the same manner I did tlie former 
Company, they went away, and, as I was told, buried 
their tools somewhere in the Woods. These people desired 
me to assist them in surveying the Lands, and told me 
tliey would reward me handsomely for my trouble, but I 
refused to have any thing to do with them. Brother : 
Six days after these were gone there came eight other 
white men and a mulatto, and said the very same things 
to me that the others had said, and immediately I got 
together my Council, and as soon as we had linislied our 
Consultations, I told these people that I actually would 
confine them and carry them to Philadelphia and deliver 
them to the Governor there, upon which they went away, 
saying they would go to their own Governor, and come 
again with great numbers in the Spring. Some of these 
people stole my Horse that I bought at Easton, but they 
gave me another Horse and five pounds in money, in 
satisfaction for my Horse. Brother : Tho' I threatened these 
people hard, that I would confine them and carry them 
down to you, yet I did not mean actually to do it, remem- 
bering that you charged me not to strike any White Man, 
tho' they should come, but to send you the earliest 
notice of their coming that was in my power. Brother : 
Before I got up to Wyomink from Lancaster, there had 
come a great Body of these New England People with 
intent actually to settle the Land, but the Six Nations 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 91 

passing by at that time from Lancaster, sent to let them 
know that they should not be permitted to settle any of 
these Lands, and on their expressing great resentment 
against them, and threatening them if they persisted, they 
went away. This I was told by Thomas Iving, who was 
left behind at Wyomink by the Six Nations, to tell me 
that they intended to lay this whole matter before the 
great Council at Onondagoe, and that they would send for 
me and my Indians to come to Albany in the Spring, 
where thpy are to have a meeting with the New England 
people, and desired that I would be quiet till I should 
receive their Message, and then come to Albany. On 
this speech of Thomas King's we met together iu Council, 
and agreed not to give him any promise to come to 
Albany, but to advise the Governor of Pennsylvania of 
this, and take his advice what to do, and if he will go 
with us and advise us to go, we Avill go in case we are 
sent for in the Spring. Brother : Surely as you have a 
General of the King' s Armies here, he might hinder these 
people from coming and disturbing us in our possessions. 
Brother : About six days after I left Wyomink I received 
a Belt, which was broiiglit me by the Indian man Com- 
pass ; it came first to Nutimus, and from him to me. By 
that Belt, Beaver desired that I and the Delawares, the 
Wapings, and Mohickons, settled at Wyomink. would 
remove thence and come and live at Allegheny. Brother : 
I have one thing more to say, and I shall have finished 
all I have to say at this time. Brother : You may remem- 
ber that at the Treaty at Easton we were piomised that a 
Schoolmaster and Ministers should be sent to instruct us 
in religion, and to teach us to read and write. As none 
have yet been provided for us, I desire to know what 
you intend to do in this matter. I have now done." * 

The Governor, in reply, informed Teedyuscung, that as 
Wyoming lands had never yet been purchased from the 

' Col. Rec, vol. ix., pp. 6-8. 



ya HISTORY OF THE 

Six Nations, he liad sent a messenger to warn the Connec- 
ticut people away from Lechawanock Creek, who mei 
them returning because of the rough manner spoken to 
by the Indians. After commending Teedyuscung for his 
fidelity and good behavior, the Governor said, "Brother: 
You know that your Uncles, the Six Nations, have kin- 
dled a fire for you at Wyoniink, and desired you would 
stay there and watch, and give them notice if any White 
people should come to take away the Lands from them, 
and that you would not suffer them to do it. Be assured 
that this winter, measures loill he taken to prevent these 
troublesome people froiti coming to disturh you. On 
these considerations T desire you to remain quiet where 
you are, and not move away, as you seem to have no 
inclinations to go away only on account of these New 
England disturbers. Tlie times have been so unsettled, 
that there has been no opportunity of sending Ministers 
and Sclioolniasters among you. Now there is a likeli- 
hood of a general peace being soon established, if you 
determine still to continue at Wyomink, I shall consider 
of this matter and send you an answer at a proper 
time." ^ 

The complaints of Teedyuscung, nor the threats of 
Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton, were hardly necessary, as 
the next year (1763) witnessed the murder of the king 
of the Delawares, in his simple cabin by the river side, 
and the fliglit or massacre of the defenseless yeomanry at 
Wyoming. Wlieu Teedyuscung sank the tomahawk into 
the skull of the o lending Iroquois warrior on his way to 
Easton, in 1758, unavenged and apparently unnoticed at 
the time, he wrote his own death-warrant in the blood of 
the fallen chief. Indian revenge slumbers only to in- 
crease its intensity. Under the garb of friendship, he was 
visited at his village by some warriors of the Six Nations 
from the upper branches of the Susquehanna, plied boun- 

1 Col. Rec, vol. ix., p. 9. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 93 

tifully with liquor, of which lie was passionately fond, 
andwhile thus inebriated in his wigwam, helpless, asleep, 
and alone, the celebrated and venerable chieftain perish- 
ed in the flames, on the night of April 19, 1763. His own 
dwelling, and twenty others surrounding it, had been set 
on fire simultaneously, by these emissaries from the Six 
Nations, who thus sought and found revenge upon the 
unforgotten and unresisting offender. 

Some four months previous to tliis the Yankees had 
returned to the valley witli their families, bringing along 
cattle, sheep, hogs, and grain sufBcient to last them until 
the coming harvest. Traffic and fur-trading had sprung 
up with the surrounding tribes, Avith whom the most 
friendly and harmonious relations had hitherto supposed 
to have existed, when suddenly, on the afternoon of the 
fifteenth of October, while the fai-mers were hard at work 
in the field, unsuspicious of approaching danger, they 
were surrounded by "a party of Indians, who massacred 
about tAventy persons,' took several prisoners, and hav- 
ing seized upon the live stock, drove it toward their 
town. Tiiose who escaped, hastened to their dwellings, 
gave the alarm to the families of those who were killed, 
and the remainder of the colonists — men, women, and chil 
dren — fled precipitately to the mountains, from whence 
they beheld the smoke arising from their late habitations, 
and the savages feasting on the remains of their little 
property. They had taken no provisions with them, 
except what they had liastily seized in their flight, and 
must pass through a wilderness sixty miles in extent 
before they could reach the Delaware River. They had 
left brothers, husbands, and sons to the mercy of the sav- 
ages ; they had no means of defense, in case they should 



' The following persons were amono: the killed: — "Rev. Wm. Marsh, Thoa. 
Marsh, Timothy Hollisler, Timothy HoUister, Jr., Isaac Hollister, Nathan Terry, 
Wright Smith, Daniel Baldwin and wife, Isaac Wiggins, Zeruah Whitney. Mr. 
Shepherd, and a son of Daniel Baldwin, were taken prisoners."' — Annals of Lu- 
zerne. 



94 HISTORY OF THE 

be attacked, and found tliemselves exposed to the cold 
winds of autumn without sufficient raiment. With these 
melancholy recollections and cheerless prospects did the 
fugitives commence a journey of two hundred and fifty 
miles on foot." ^ 

Thus by one stroke, seldom surpassed in suddenness 
or atrocity, by the same savages that slew Teedyuscung 
and then attempted to fix the ignominious crime upon the 
New England men, having no knowledge of its inception 
or no part in its execution, every living white person was 
swept from Wyoming in an hour, and the valley again left 
in the sole occupancy of the Indian. Their removal or de- 
struction at this time, if more vindictive and cruel, was no 
more certain than that vouchsafed them by the Provin- 
cial Government, had a few more days of quiet husbandry 
have been allowed them by the Indians. On the Tuesday 
before the first massacre, October 17, 1763, Major Clayton 
marched to Wyoming' to carry out the instructions of the 
Provincial Government, already anticipated by the fire- 
brand and hatchet. He "met with no Indians, but 
found the New Englanders who had been killed and 
scalped a day or two before they got there. They buried 
the dead, nine men and one woman, who had been most 
cruelly but(diered ; the woman was I'oasted, and had two 
hinges in her hands, supposed to have been put in red 
hot, and several of the men had awls thrust into their 
eyes, and spears, arrows, pitchforks, &c., sticking in 
their bodies. They burnt loliat houses the Indians had 
left, and destroyed a quantity of Indian corn. The 
enemy's tracks were up the river toward Wighaloe- 
sing." ^ 

On the 20th October, Governor Hamilton ordered 
Colonel James Bard to Wyoming as a commissioner, not 
to look after the warriors thus arrayed for murder and 



' Chapman. ' Pa. Arch., 1763, p. 125. 

' See Letter from Paxton, Lancaster County, dated Oct. 23, 1763. 



LACKAWANNA VAI.LKT. 95 

Tniscliief, but "to require and command tlie Inhabitants, 
in His Majesty's l^SiXwe, forthwith to desist from tlieir said 
undertaking, and to depart and remove from thence,'" &q} 

It is hardly possible that news of the massacre carried 
by the slow canoe-route, or narrow foot-path, could have 
reached Philadelphia at tliis time, as no allusion is made 
to it until October 25, 1763, when the Rev. Jolin Elder, 
-of Paxton, captain of two Lancaster companies, wrote as 
follows to Governor Hamilton: "Sir, In a Lett'r I writ 
to your Hon'r the 17th Inst., I acquainted 3'Ou that it 
then was impossible to suspend the Wyoming Expedition, 
The party is now returned, and I shall not trouble your 
Hon'r with my account of their proceedings, as Major 
Claj^ton informs me that he transmitted to you, from Fort 
A.ugusta, a particular journal of their transactions from 
their leaving Hunters till they returned to Augusta." The 
mangled Carcases of these unhappy people presented to 
on r Troops a melancholy Scene, which had been acted not 
above two days before their arrival ; and by the way the 
Savages came into the Town, it appears they were the 
same party that committed the Ravages in Northampton 
County, and as they set off from Wyoming up the same 
Branch of the River, towards Wiliilusing, and from sev- 
eral other Circumstances, it's evident, that till that 
Branch is cleared of the enemy, the frontier settlem'ts 
will be in no safety." ^ 

Nothing Avhatever was done by the authorities of Penn- 
sylvania toward punishing, or even rebuking, the authors 
of this preconcerted destruction of life and property, made 
more atrocious by the fact that settlers living in North- 
ampton County uttered no complaint, and interposed 
neither inquiry nor remonstrance at this or any other 
time. 

' Col. Rec, vol. ix., p. 61. 

'No such Report appears either in the Pennsylvania Archives or Rec- 
ords. 

' Pennsylvania Archives, 1 760-7 G, p. 127. 



96 HISTORY OF THE 

In fact so great and so apparent was this stoic indiffer- 
ence exhibited toward the welfare of a feeble but ener- 
getic colony, struggling alike with starvation and savage 
treachery, that Governor Amherst of New York wrote to 
Governor Hamilton tlmt, " I can not help repeating my 
surprise at the infatuation of the people in your Province, 
who tamely look on while their brethren are butchered 
by the Savages, when, without doubt, it is in their power, 
by exerting a proper spirit, not only to protect the settle- 
ments, but to punish any Indians that are hardy enough 
to disturb them." ^ 

While there seems to have been no complicity, either 
charged or suspected, between the provincial authorities 
of Pennsylvania and the disaffected portion of the Six 
Nations in regard to the annihilation of the young settle- 
ment at Wyoming, no one can peruse the Pennsylvania 
Archives or the Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, em- 
bracing as they do, the earliest written history of Wyo- 
ming, without reflections not flattering to the magnanimity 
either of the Province or the State. 

In the earlier history of the valley, barbarities were 
sometimes practiced, both by the red and the white man, 
upon the weaker party. Conrad Weiser, after visiting 
Wyoming, in 1755, describes the capture of an Indian, 
who ''begged his life, but (shocking to me) they shot him 
in the midst of them, scalped him, and threw his body 
into the river.'" Two months after the Connecticut set- 
tlers were slaughtered and first expelled from Wyoming, 
the Conestogae Indians — the remains of a tribe of the Six 
Nations — were massaci-ed in Lancaster by the whites. On 
the 14th of December, 17G;3, these Moravian Indians, who 
had lived under the faith of the Government for sixty 
years, were shot and clubbed in cold blood, and every 
indignity practiced upon the women and children, whose 
age and sex plead alike in vain to the avenging hand of 

' Col. Rec. vol. ii., p. 62. « Ibid., vol. vi., p. 763. 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 97 

the Paxton men. " They surrounded the small village of 
Indian huts, and just at break of day broke in upon them 
all at once. Only three men, two women, and a young 
boy, were found at home. These poor, defenseless crea- 
tures were immediately fired upon, stabbed, and hatch- 
eted to death! The good Shehaes, who was very old, 
having assisted at the second treaty held with Mr. Penn, 
in 1701, was, among the rest, cut to pieces in his bed ! The 
Magistrates of Lancaster sent out and collected the remain- 
ing Indians, promised them protection, and put them in 
the work-house, a strong building, as a place of greatest 
safety. On the 27th of December, these cruel men, armed 
as before, broke open the door, and entered with the ut- 
most fury in their countenances. When the fourteen poor 
wretches saw no possible protection nor escape, and being 
without the least weapon of defense, they divided their 
little families, and children clinging to their parents ; they 
fell on their faces, protested their innocence, declared 
th(4r love to the English, and that in their whole lives 
they had never done them injury ; and in this position 
they all received the hatchet ! Men, women, and children 
Avere every one inhumanly murdered in cold blood." ^ 

This ferocious transaction, the authors of which, 
although w^ell known in the community, ever remained 
unpunished, created among the Indian tribes through- 
out the country a profound sensation, and for months 
awakened no little solicitude in the head of the Govern- 
ment of Pennsylvania. Governor Penn, justly indignant, 
an I conscious of the great wrong intiicted upon the 
Indians, w4iom the official men of the province had sworn 
to protect, fearing its deplorable effect upon the usually 
stoical but ever-vindictive savage, promptly and boldly 
denounced the guilty party as "villainous and murder- 
ous," and issued warrants for their arrest ; and yet, al- 



' See Prout's History of Pennsylvania, vol. i., pp. .'52G-8; also, Col. Rcc. vol. 
ix., pp. 102-5, 107, 112-13. 121-3, 125, 127-f), 132, 137, 142, 170, 409. 



98 HISTORY OF THE 

though they were living within the county, they were 
never reprimanded, arrested, nor punished. 

The property of these tomahawked natives, consisting 
of "three horses, two belts of wampum," a number of 
deeds, treaties, and documents, written on parchment, 
and signed by Wm. Penn, in 1701, and Logan and others, 
were subsequently returned to their relatives in the 
Indian country. 

This wanton and wicked breach of faith on the part of 
citizens of Lancaster and Paxton, contributed to influenc-e 
the Moravian Indians at Wyalusing and elsewhere along 
the Susquehanna to remove westward, and had very 
much to do henceforth toward inspiring a spirit of war- 
fare and revenge along the border, as well as to palliate 
and excuse the treatment of tlielr captives taken from 
the whites. 

In a message to Gov. Penn from the Assembly, in 
Feb., 1768, a portion of these outrages are thus enumer- 
ated : "In the year 1763, the cruel Massacre of Twenty 
Indians, chiefly of the Six Nations, were perpetrated at 
Conestago and Lancaster. In the same year a Delaware 
Chief met with the same fate between Sherman' s Valley 
and Juniata. In 1765, a Chief of the Six Nations was 
murdered near Bedford. In the year 1766, a principal 
warrior of the Delawares was killed between Red Stone 
creek and Cheat river ; and three Delaware Chiefs were 
robbed and murdered near Fort Pitt, by two inhabitants 
of this Province. An Indian was lately murdered in 
Northampton County ; besides the late barbarity com- 
mitted by Frederic Stump and his servant on ten Indians 
at Middle Creek. And not one of those murderers have 
heert brought to punislimerd.'"^ England and France 
having concluded a definite peace in 1763, hostilities 
ceased throughout the colonial settlements. 

In September, 1766, an adventurous trader, named John 

' Col. Rec, vol. i.\., pp. 478-9. 



LACKAWANNA VALLIiY. 99 

Anderson, bad a store ol" goods at Wyoming, for traffic 
with the red men, and was comphiined of by the Nanti- 
coke, Conoys, and Mohickons, from the Council Fires at 
Chenango, in the following manner to John Penn : — 
"Brother: As we came down from our Country we 
stopped at Wyoming, w ere we had a Mine in two places, 
and we discovered that some white People had been at 
work in the Mine, and had filled three Canoes with the 
Ore ; and we saw their Tools with which they had dug it 
out of the ground, were they had made a hole at least 
forty feet long, and five or six feet deep. It happened, 
formerly, that some white People did now and then take 
only a small bit, and carried it away, but these People 
have been working at the Mine, and have filled their 
canoes. We desire you will tell us wliether you know any 
thing of this matter, or if it be doiie by your Consent. We 
are informed that there is one John Andei'son, a Trader, 
now living at Wyoming, and we suspect that either he or 
somebody employed by him has robbed our mine. This 
Mail lias a Store of Goods there, and it may happen, when 
the Indians see their Mine robbed, they will come and 
take away his Goods." ^ 

Governor Penn replied that he knew nothing of the 
mine or Anderson, who had settled in the Indian country 
without his knowledge or wish. ''But you know," 
addressing the chief, "that notwitlistanding all our Care, 
as it is such a Distance, People may go there and we 
know nothing of it."- The knowledge of this silver 
mine perished with the race that knew it. 

For six years, aside from the intrusion of these ex- 
plorers and traders, Wyoming was left in its native soli- 
tude, and as the intei'vening years make no history for 
the valley then in dispute between Pennsylvania and 
Connecticut, a brief synopsis of the different charters 
and grants relating to the disputed territoi-y claimed 

' Col. Rec, vol. ix. pp. .•!29-30. " Ibid , p. 332. 



100 HISTORY OF THE 

by the respective parties, and a mere outline of tlie claim 
and controversy arising from the same, will not only be 
expected by the intelligent reader, but it is indispensable 
to a proper appreciation of the history of the LackaAvanna 
Valley, then within the contested limit. In fact, the earli- 
est history of the valley, could not be complete nor 
understood without such a general exposition of grants 
and charters, running along down into the Connecticut 
claim, from the first grant of land in America, in 1606, by 
the English Government. 

As early as 1606, King James of England, jealous of the 
ambitious French, advancing to traffic on the Indian shore 
of tlie western continent, divided that pan of North Amer- 
ica, lying between the 34th and 45th degrees of latitude, in- 
to two portions. The northern part he granted by patent 
to Thomas Hanham and others, who associated themselves 
for the purpose of opening a trade with the Indians for 
skins, furs, and tobacco. Forty noblemen, knights, and 
gentlemen were incorporated, March 3, 1620, by King 
James, into a company known as " The Councils estab- 
lished at Plymouth, in the County of Dei^on, for the 
Planting, Ruling, and Governing of New England, in 
America,'"^ to whom and their assigns were granted all 
"That part of America, lying and being in breadth from 
the forty degrees of the said Northerly latitude from the 
Equinoctial line, to forty-eight degrees of the said North- 
erly latitude, inclusively, and in length of and within all 
the breadth aforesaid, throughout the mainland from sea 
to sea," &c." While the governing poAvers and privileges 
of this Plymouth corporation were being exercised in 
England, the laws and regulations of the body were to 
extend over NeiD England, which thus derived its name 
from this grant. Originally embracing all of New Eng- 
land, portions of this vast territory were divided and 
subdivided, as to subsequently form the New England 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 101 

States. Each sale and division of pr()})erty thus effected, 
had to be ratified by tlie legislative power in England to 
make it valid and binding. 

A portion of the territory of the Plymouth Company 
was sold in 1628, and subsequently became the State of 
Massachusetts. Another ])ortiou, now^ forming the State 
of Connecticut, was transferred to the Earl of Warwick in 
1630, who, in March, 1631, sold the same territory to Lord 
Gay and fifteen others. It embraced "all that part of 
New England, in America, which lies and extends itself 
from a river, there called Narragansett river, the space 
of forty leauges upon a straight line near the shore, to- 
Avards the southwest, west and by south, or west as the 
coast lieth, towards Virginia, acounting three English 
miles to the leauge ; and, also, all and singular the lands 
and hereditaments whatsoever, lying and being within the 
lands aforesaid, north nnd south in latitude and breadth, 
and in lengtli and longitude, of and within all tJiehreadth 
aforesaid, throughout the main lands there, from the 
western ocean to the south sea.'"'^ 

By virtue of this royal grant, a small band of energetic 
men made the first settlement on the bank of the C(ui- 
u'jcticut River, in 1633. This last-named grant was sold 
in 1662 to the Free Planters of the Colony of Connecticut 
for 16,000 pounds sterling. King Charles the Second 
confirmed the charter to the Connecticut colon v, of "all 
that part in our dominion in New England, in America, 
bounded on the East by Naragansett Bay, Avhere the said 
river falleth into the Sea, and on the North by the line of 
the Massachusetts plantation, on the South hy the sea, and 
in longitude as the line of the Massachusetts Colony run- 
ning from East to West (that is to sa}-) from the Naragan- 
sett Bay on the East, to the South sea on the West part." 

These several instruments, taken as a whole, open a full 
view of the ancient territorial limits of Connecticut.- 

' Trumbull. -■ Chapman. 



102 IIISIORY OF THE 

Forty leagues (120 miles) along the coast from Narra- 
gansett Bay toward Virginia, would terminate very 
nearly on the fortieth degree of north latitude, fixed as a 
boundary in the original grant to the Plymouth Company 
and would embrace the comparative little territory of 
both Wyoming and Lackawanna valleys. 
• The original charter of William Penn, wliicli granted 
to him so many of the coal and iron-clad valleys and 
mountains of Pennsylvania, and which subsequently 
developed the Pennymite war in Wyoming, dates back to 
March 4, 1681. " Out of a commendable desire to enlarge 
our English Empire," &c., Charles the Second granted 
to William Penn, "all that tract or parte of land in 
America, with all tVie Islands therein conteyned, as the 
same is bounded on the East by the Delaware river from 
twelve miles distance, Northwarde of New Castle Towne 
unto the three and fortieth degree of Northern latitude, if 
the said River doth extend soe farre Northwards. But 
if the said River sliall not extend soe farre Northward 
then by the said River soe farre as it doth extend, and 
from the head of the said River the Easterne bounds air 
to bee determined by a meridian line, to bee drawn ir(jm 
the head of the said River unto the three and fortieth 
degree, the said land to extend Westwards, five degrees 
in longitude, to bee computed fj-om the Easterne Bounds, 
and the said lands to bee bounded on the North by the 
beginning of the three and foi-tieth degree of Northern 
latitude," &c.^ 

The opposing claims of Pennsylvania, as set forth by 
its agents, Messrs. Bradford, Read, AVilsoii, and Sargeant, 
before the Court of Commission assembled at Trenton, 
New Jersey, in November, 1782, to finally determine the 
controversy between Pennsylvania and Connecticut re- 
garding Wyoming, will be found in ample detail in the 
Pennsylvania Archives, 1782-3. They claimed Wyoming 

' See Col. Rec, vol. i.. pp. 17-20, for copy of original cliarter. 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 103 

"by virtue of the royal purchase of Mr. Penn, Avho with 
succeeding proprietaries had negotiated with the Indians 
for the full and absolute right of pre-emption for all the 
lands in dispute. They also claimed " that the Northern 
bounds have always been deemed to extend to the end 
of the forty-second Degree, where the ligures 428 are so 
marked on the map ; the River Delaware being found to 
extend so far North and ftirther ; the said River, pursu- 
ing the East or main Branch thereof, above the Forks at 
Easton, hath been ever deemed to be one Boundary of 
Pennsylvania from twelve miles above New Castle, on 
the said River," &c.^ 

The northern part of the territory granted to William 
Penn, spread over a part of the western lands before 
granted to the colony of Connecticut, equal to one degree 
of latitude through the whole breadth of said grant. 

The collisions, running through thirteen years of crim- 
son austerities between Pennsylvania and Connecticut for 
jurisdiction and right of soil in Wyoming, originated 
either in great want of knowledge of the topography of 
America by the Englisli Government, or an unpardonable 
careless exercise of it in regard to this charter to William 
Penn, which thus interfered with and overlapped lands 
already sold to Connecticut. Of this interference, Mr. 
Penn had notice at the time of his taking out his patent 
for those lands.* 

The Indian title to the wilderness overshadowing the 
Schuylkill and '' Lechhaiy Hills'' (Lehigh) had been 
extinguished as early as 1732 ; and the land about the 
mouth of the creek called Lechawaclisein (Lackawaxen) 
was purchased of the Indians by the Provincial Govern- 
ment of Pennsylvania in October, 1756 ;^ but Wyoming, 
more isolated in its sylvan solitude, liad been reserved by 
the tribes controlling it, for hunting-grounds or a retreating 
place long after their intercourse began with the whites. 

' See Pa. Arch., 1782, p. 701. = Ibid., p. 707. ' Ibid.,, p. 722, 



104 HISTOKT OF THE 

It was first sold by tliem, July 11, 1754, as before related, 
to the Connecticut Susquehanna Company. 

It will be readily seen that the charter of Connecticut, 
embracing Wyoming, was given nineteen years anterior 
to that of Pennsylvania, possessed and settled by Connecti- 
cut with her strong and sturdy sons, and yet, after a delib- 
eration of over five weeks in 1783, the adjusticating 
commissioners at Trenton, gave an opinion in the matter 
as follows, that astonished the citizens of both States with 
its brevity and its Mas : — " We are unanimously of Opin- 
ion that the State of Connecticut has no Right to the Lands 
in Controversy. We are also unanimously of Opinion 
that the Jurisdiction and Pre-emption of all the Territory 
lying within the Charter Boundary of Pennsylvania, and 
now claimed by the State of Connecticut, do of Right 
belong to the State of Pennsylvania."^ This decision, 
known as the "" Ti^enton Decree,^'' from which there was 
no possible appeal or redress, while it decided the ques- 
tion oi jurisdiction only, indicated the selfish and illib- 
eral spirit that would and that did ultimately inspire a 
judicial opinion in regard to the right of soil already held 
by Connecticut by every essential condition giving valid- 
ity to a title, viz. : grant from the king — purchase of the 
soil from the Indian owners, and actual occupancy of the 
same. 

Generations have been born and buried since our hill- 
sides and villages, now exulting and expanding in their 
thrift, knew no tranquillity but that given for an liour 
by the stronger wielded bayonet of one rival party or 
the other, struggling for mastery of the valley ; and even 
while the Indian wars smote down a father or a son with no 
shroud but the gloom of the forest, and no grave but some 
friendly rock yet full of the farewell whispers of the dead ; 
or even when the Revolution came with its burden borne 
cheerfully and valiantly even here, the Connecticut set- 

' Pa. Arch., 1783, p. 732. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 105 

tiers had hardly a moment's respite from officious sheriffs, 
and their often brutal posses, sent out by Pennsylvania 
to annoy, imprison, or expel the naturally quiet people 
of Wyoming. 

The Connecticut controversy and the Pennymite conten- 
tion for Wyoming, which had all the grand features of an 
epic poem, has long ceased to occupy the public mind as 
it did prominently for a half a century, because less occa- 
sion for its existence was known after the jinal compro- 
mising law of 1799 established kind and harmonious 
relations between the contending parties ; but no one can 
peruse the able works of Peck, Miner, Chapman, or 
Pearce, or wade through the voluminous official papers 
of the State, giving such vast variety and abundance of 
documentary evidence pertaining to this matter, without 
feeling that the early emigrants from Connecticut who 
sought out and settled the lands of the Susquehanna and 
Delaware companies at Wyoming and Wallenpaupack in 
the best faith, were shamefully robbed and wronged by 
unprincipled persons acting by and with the authority of 
Pennsylvania. The bad spirit evinced by either party, 
as far as it relates to the history of the Lackawanna Val- 
ley, will be briefly noticed in a future page. 



GENERAL HISTORY — CONTINUED. 

To obviate trouble with a portion of the Indians ren- 
dered dissatisfied with the sale of Wyoming lands by the 
representations of the Penn interests inimical to the sale, 
the English Government, through its agents in America, 
held a treaty at Fort Stanwix, near Oneida Lake, in the 
fall of 1768, with the Six Nations ; at which time and place 
the most friendly assurances were given and received by 
both parties, and the lands on the Susquehanna were 
ceded to the English. At the same general treaty, some 
of the chiefs of tlie Six Nations. willino;to sell their lands 



106 HISTORY OF THE 

to as many parties and as many times as pay would be 
forthcoming, gave the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania a 
deed of Wyoming lands which had been sold nineteen 
years previous to the Susquehanna Company. 

Immediately after the close of this Indian Congress, the- 
Susquehanna Company held a meeting at Hartford, and 
voted to settle Wyoming at once. It was also "voted 
that forty Persons, upwards of the age of twenty-one 
years, Pi'oprietors in said Purchase, proceed to take pos- 
session of said land by the iirst day of February next, 
and that two hundred more of the age aforesaid join the 
said forty as early in the Spring as may be." ^ For the 
purpose of encouraging the self-reliant men who were 
expected to encounter many a repelling wave as they 
went into this Indian land, the sum of two hundred 
pounds was appropriated to purchase " proper materials, 
sustenance, and Provisions for said forty." Five town- 
ships, each five miles square, were to be laid out for "the 
said forty and the said two hundred persons, reserving and 
appropriating three whole Rights or Shares in each Town- 
ship for the Public use of a Gospel Minister and Schools 
in each of said Towns, and also reserving for the use of 
said Company all Beds, Mines, Iron Ore, and Coals." ^ 
John Jenkins, Isaac Tripp, Benj. FoUett, Wm. Burk, and 
Benj, Shoemaker, were appointed a committee to exer- 
cise a general superintendence over the affairs of the 
forty settlers, and to lay out and prepare a road through 
the wilderness to Susquehanna River. Fifty pounds, 
Connecticut currency ($167), was voted this committee to 
build this, the first road opened from the East to Wyo- 
ming. This trail or public road followed the warriors' 
path, and, unbridged for swamps and streams sometimes 
formidable indeed, was simply widened for the saddled 
horse. 

A road had been opened to Teedyuscung's village from 

1 Col. Rec, vol. ix., p. 570. « Ibid. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 107 

Sharaokin in 1759. Wyoming, wliicli lay in serene 
grandeur amid her mountain shades, had been watched 
by Governor Penn with an extraordinary appreciation of 
its importance and relations to his own Provin(;e. Not 
only this, but the fear of a new Colony oi- Pi-ovinc^e, dis- 
tinct from that of Pennsylvania or Connecticut, and com- 
paratively independent of either, to embrace Wyoming 
and Lackawanna valleys, Wallenpaupack, and Cochecton 
within its boundary, contributed mucli toward inspiring 
the unyielding opposition of Penn to any movement of 
men aiming to develop the backAvoods of Wyoming. 
After the Proprietaries' purchase of these lands in Novem- 
ber, 1768, Governor Penn proceeded forthwith to lease 
one hundred acres for seven years to Messrs. Ogden, Jen- 
kins, and Stewart, ostensibly to establish an Indian trad- 
ing post, but really to baffle the efforts of the Susque- 
hanna Company to colonize and settle the territory, and 
to retain possession himself. "These lessees," says 
Chapman, ''with several other adventurers, removed to 
AVyoming in January, 1769, and took possession of the 
improvements made by the Connecticut people, fi'om 
which they had been driven by the Indians in 1763." 
The forty persons sent out by the Susquehanna Company 
from Hartford, arrived on the ground, February 8, 1769. 
'' On their arrival at the place where they had built a log 
house in 1763, they found Captain Amos Ogden, an Indian 
Trader, and others Avith him, had entered into their s"d 
house. Our Settlers, not willing to use any force to regain 
the s'd house from him or them, set themselves to build 
a number of Log Houses, or rather Huts, for their shelter, 
and went quietly about their lawful business in the peace 
of God and the King." * The forty settlers at Mill Creek 
were taken prisoners by the Ogden party, carried to 
Easton jail, seventy miles away, promptly released on 
bail, and as promptly sought their Wyoming cabins. 

' Pa. Arch, 1771, p. 404. 



108 HISTORY OF THE 

In the month of March following, being joined by some 
one hundred and fifty others from Connecticut and Lan- 
caster County, Pennsylvania, who, finding their comrades 
at Mill Creek under bonds to appear at Easton Court dur- 
ing this month, stopped at the mouth of the Lackawanack, 
where they erected some rude log structures for 
dwellings and defense. When the first party of New 
England men were on their way to Wyoming in January, 
1769, Thos. Bennett, of Goshen, New York, was induced 
to accompany the party hither. Immediately after the 
capture and partial dispersion of the settlers at Mill 
Creek, he went with some "New England men to a place 
called Lamawanak, and there built a Blockhouse,"^ for 
the purpose of resisting the aggressions both of the 
Pennymites and the hostility of the surrounding Indians. 
After Bennett's arrest by the Pennsylvania authorities, he 
endeavored to exculpate himself from censure by affirm- 
ing "that the only reason of his ever appearing in arms 
at the Fort was to keep Centry sometimes in Ids turn, 
when they were under apprehensions of being attacked 
by the Indians, a number of them being then there, who 
appeared very angry and j)aint(^d, and threatening to 
roast a Hog in the Fort and have a dance ; and that the 
said Indians carried off a Hog.'' - 

"Nothing," says Bancroft, "could restrain the Ameri- 
cans from peopling the wilderness. To be a freeholder was 
the ruling passion of the New England man. Marriages 
were early and fruitful. The sons as they grew up, 
skilled in the use of the ax and the ritie, would, one 
after another, move from the old homestead, and with 
a wife, a yoke of oxen, a cow, and a few husbandry tools, 
build a small hut in some new plantation, and by tasking 
every faculty of mind and body, win for themselves 
plenty and independence. Such were they who begaji to 
dwell among the untenanted forests that rose between the 

' ra. Arch., 17GO-177G, p. 391. Mbid., 1771, p. 392. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 109 

Penobscot and the Sainte Croix, or in the New Hamp- 
shire grants, on each side of the Green Mountains, or in 
the exquisitely beautiful Valley of Wyoming, where, on 
the banks of the Susquehanna, the wide and rich meadows, 
shut in by walls of wooded mountains, attracted emi- 
grants from Connecticut, though their claim of right 
under the charter of their native colony was in conflict 
with the territorial jurisdiction of the Proprietaries of 
Pennsylvania." ^ 

Of the forty adventurers plunging into the forest thus 
disputed, to be greeted only with writs and arrests by 
the Pennymites, apprised of their coming by swift-footed 
couriers from the Delaware, none chose to stop and settle 
at Caqjoose^ yet watched with boAV and battle-ax. Hun- 
ters and trappers had achieved rare sport along its bor- 
ders, trodden by game easily secured, but the emigrant, 
hopeful and heroic as he came from liis home, passed by 
the wigwams, and went with the main body down to the 
mouth of the stream. 

The names of the five original townsliips laid out li(Me, 
were Wilkes Barre, Hanover, Plymouth, Kings-town, 
and Pitts-town ; Providence, or " Sixth Town of ye Ca- 
poose Meadows," being laid out and added in 1770. 
Lackawannock was then applied to the country in th(- 
immediate vicinity of the mouth of the stream, embracing 
the village of Asserughney, occupied by the swarthy 
aborigines. It was in the new laid-out township of Pitts- 
town, and as its banks were clear of wood for Jive miles^ 
it promised economy of labor in cultivation, and was 
chosen for a settlement partly for this reason, and partly 
because of the unfriendly occupancy of the Mill Creek 
clearing, a few miles below it, by the Pennymites. 

Although all persons from the "Colony of Connecticut 
attempting to settle upon a Large Tract of Land, within the 
Limits of this Province, lying at and hetween Wyoming, on 

' Bancroft's History United States, vol. v., p. 105 



110 iJISTOKV OF THE 

the River Susquehanna, and Cushietunk, on the River 
Delaware, ' ' were notified at this time by Governor Penn, 
whose eye was sleepless upon the distant valley, to leave 
the settleiaents forthwith, the solitude of the Lackawanna, 
interrupted only by the low babbling of brooks, or the 
dull sounds from the Indian clearings, began to attract the 
emigrant, who came liither with all the industrious quali- 
fications belonging to the New England character. In 
fact, civilization was never carried westward into the 
wilderness l>y a more gallant and deserving body of men, 
than those who formed the vanguard of this frontier 
settlement. Descending from the same stock of determined 
pioneers, that wrought out a colony amid the vales and 
hills of Connecticut, they entered with equal zeal into 
this new acquisition, hoping to achieve greater conquests 
with the plow and hard-swung ax, and, if need be, lay 
the foundation for a grand commonwealth, as other 
provinces had been laid out before. 

In May, 1769, Charles Stewart. Esq., writes from 
" Manor of Stoke, "^ that he had but twenty-four men to 
oppose the New England men, of whom, "one hundred 
and forty-six, chiefly on horseback, passed by our 
houses this afternoon (Ma}^ 16, 1769), about three o'clock, 
and are now encamped on the East side of the River. From 
the view I had of those Gentry, in their procession by our 
Houses, they appear to be at least an equal number of 
them of the very lowest class, but are almost all armed 
and fit for mischief.'' ^^ 

Such was the language, and such the bitterness of the 
reception meted out to the new-comers from Paxton, 
entering the valley. 

It was thus amidst king's writs, posses, and arrests, as 
will be seen, and all the exacting severities incident to 

' In 1769, Wyoming was laid out into two vast manors by Pennsylvanna sur- 
veyors, viz. : "Manor of Stoke," embracing the east side of the Susquehanna, 
and "Manor of Sunbury," extending over the west side. 

* C. Stewart's Letter, Mav, I7»i9. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 



Ill 



the backwoodsmau's life a century ago, that the Paxton 
boy forgot his fruitful intervale, and the Yankee forsook 
his stone-clad homestead in Connecticut, for the inhospi- 
table plains of Wyoming. 

Thirty-five of the persons thus described by Mr. 
Stewart, located near Pittston. Their names were : — 



' Benj. Slioemaker, 
John McDowell, 
Samuel Weyburn, 
John Lee, 
Joseph Lee, 
Thomas Bennett, 
Benj. Follett, 

Cornstack, 

Daniel Hains, 
John McDowell, Jr.. 
Benj. Shoemaker, Jr., 
Asher Harrod, 



William Leonard, 

John Leonard, 

Samuel Marvin, 

Marvin, 

Rheuben Hulhurt, 

Samuel Clark, 

John Gardner, 

John De Long, 

John Smith, Esq., & h 

two sons, 

and Smitl 

Joseph Moss. 



Smith 



Azariah Dean, 
John Wheat, 
John Wharburt, 
Jacob Welch, 
Jabez Cook, 
Ebenezer Nultrip, 

Chambers, 

• Gore, 

i ■ Babcook, 

Wright." 



Although many of these men subsequently settled in 
the more central or lower townships, they at this time 
located on the belt of ground running in such exquisite 
beauty from Campbell's Ledge down to the outlet of the 
Xiackawanna. 

This so aroused the indignation of John Jenkins, Esq., 
sheriff of Northampton County, to whom was intrusted a 
general supervision of the Proprietaries' interest at Wyo- 
ming, that he assembled a posse to arrest or drive away 
the settlers into the cold hospitality of the woods. He 
"went to Lacknawanak^ near Wyoming, on Susque- 
hanna, in the County of Northampton, where the intrud- 
ers had built their two houses, One of which was a Strong 
Log house built for Defense ; that the said Intruders 
betook themselves to their said Houses, and declared they 
would not give up the Possession of the said Lands, but 
would maintain the same as their own, and put to Death 
any persons that attempted to dispossess them ; that the 
said Justices, after long and fruitless expostulation, 
recorded the forcible Detainer, and this Deponent, by their 



112 



EUSTORY OF THE 



Orders, prepared to take tlie said Intruders, and received 
two Blows from some of tliem, but having forced into one 
of the houses, and taken those that were tlierein, the rest 
surrendered, and the whole thirty taken into Custody,"' 
and carried over the mountain to Easton jail, with the 
exception of those who escaped from the sheriff while on 
the way.^ 

This was in 1769. Having friends in Pennsylvania, 
they readily obtained bail, and immediately returned to 
Lacknawanak. 

The summer of this year, now agitated and then paci- 
fied by the alternation of strength of the respective par- 
ties, left the Pennymites in the possession of the valley. 
During the year 1770 the intestine feud, from which the 
inhabitants had hoped to be exempt, resulted in the tem- 
porary expulsion of the Yankees. The following is "a 
list of Lackawany who drew in 1770,"'' and were thus 
expelled : — 



Topez Williams, by 
P. Williams, 



Silas Parks, 
Prime Alden." 



In 1771 the following persons 
awanny" : — 



drew lands in Lack- 



Jacob Anguisli, 
Peter Daman, 
John Osborn, 
John Depeiw, 
Levi Green, 
Peter Mathews, 
James Hesdale, 
David Sanford, by 
Jenks Corey, 



David Brown, 
Martin Weilson, 
Elipolet Stevens, 
Dan'l St. John, 
Elizar Fillsbury, 
Stephen Wilkox, 
Richard Woodward, 
Sam'l Slaughter, 



Ebenezer West, 
Samuel Stubbs, by 

Austin Hunt, 
Ebenezer Marcy, by 

Isaac Allen, 
Caleb Bates, by 

Wm. Hopkins. 



In the AVestmoreland Records, from whose musty pages 
the foregoing list of names is taken, is the following 
entry : — 

' Pa. Arch., 1760-76, p. 343. 

'•' See Miner's Wyoming; also Pa. Arch., 1763, pp. 401-8. 

' Westmoreland Records. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY, 113 

"N. B. On the north side of Lackawun, drawd lots, 
1772. 

Jeremiah Blancliard, Samuel Sla*.er, Joseph Fish, 

Abram Harden, John Corey, Ebenezer Bachus. 

Richard West, Daniel Haller, 

"Lotts on the South side of the Lackawan river. 

Johnathan Corey, Stephen Harding, Capt. Bates, 

Ebenezer West, Ebenezer Marcy, David Brown, 

David Sanford, Augustin Hunt, James Fledget." 
Abraham Utter, 

Blood having been shed in the winter of 1771, and both 
parties having fresh accessions, the contest was renewed 
with redoubled violence. Men were i-aised by Captain 
Ogden "to reduce the Rebells at Wioming." In August, 
1771, he "moved on to the Forlvs of Lahawanak and 
Wyoming paths." ^ He captured the fort by stratagem, 
sent the Yankees to Easton jail, plundered the cabins, 
devastated the ungathered crops, and intimidated and 
suppressed every sentiment friendly to the Connecticut 
people thus stigmatized as rebels. 

In a spirit of vague Christianity he sent "a party of six 
men to lay on the Shelioley road from Wioming to Dela- 
ware, to preterit expresses going that way to N. Eng- 
laiuV ^ after relief. 

Dr. Ledlie, under date of August 16, 1771, writes to 
Governor Hamilton, that " we w^ere just sending off Flour 
by way of Lackawanack, and that we shall keep the 
Shehole and Minisink Paths Guarded to prevent more 
People, &c., coming to them." This Shehole path was 
the warriors' trail up the Lackawanna to Paupack and 
the Delaware. 

When the Yankees again returned from jail, they made 
a temporary camp-place above Pittston. Here a spy, 
"named Jas. Bertrong, was taken prisoner by a party 

' Letter, John Van Campen, August 16, 1771. 
' Pennsylvania Archives, 1771, p. 429. 



114 HISTORY OF THE 

of Men at Laclmwanack," wIjo reported that fifty or sixty 
men under Lazarus Stewart and Zel^ulon Butler, were 
then defying the authorities of Pennsylvania. 

While this strife sacrificed much of the social relations, 
and retarded the industrious tendency of the settlement, 
it was not wholly fatal to its growth. 

The immediate head or seat of the democratic colony, 
originally claimed and disputed for by the settlers at 
Kings-Town, was finally located in Wilkes Barre, where, 
in or around the fort, the people gathered at stated inter 
vals and held council together ; discussed its affairs gen- 
erally, and settled abstract principles of public right and 
good relating to the interests of Wyoming, with a fairness 
and freedom that harmonized well with the liberal charac- 
ter of the settlers from Connecticut. The proceedings of 
these meetings, kept through all the years of peace and 
war, until Connecticut lost jurisdiction over Westmore- 
land, were recorded in a written book called the West- 
moreland Records} 

Settlers were permitted ' ' to make a pitch' ' ^ or settle in 
none of the up or down river territory only by the con- 
sent or vote of the inhabitants at these meetings ; and 
even then only upon certain stipulated conditions. 

"At a meeting of ye Inhabitants of ye townships at 
Wyoming, in Wilksbury, legallj^ warned and held, 
Dec. 7, 1771, Capt. Zebulon Butler was chosen mod- 



' These old records, which once occupied a musty coop in Wilkes Barre, could 
•not be found a few months ago, when the writer sought for them through a clever 
and prominent official, are the most curious literary fragments of antiquity yet 
remaining amongst us. These meetings, which gave birth to these Records, were 
called " Yemeetuig of ye proprietors," where all had an equal voice in the de- 
liberations. A '-moderator," and "clerk" were chosen at each meeting. This 
book recorded all deods of land, &c., and was commenced in 1770, and terminated 
only with the expulsion of Connecticut jurisdiction at Wyoming, in 1782. We 
know of no other ancient manuscript, whose publication would link together and 
afford more insight into ancient times than the throe or four volumes of West- 
moreland Records, if they can be exhumed. The Historical Society of Wilkos 
Barre, if not able or disposed to print, ought to be their custodian. 

■■' The homes or clearings of the settlers early took and long retained tills name 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 115 

erator for ye day," it was voted "that tliis Corapany 
is to take in Settlers on ye following Considerations: that 
those that take up a Settling Riglit in Lockaworna^ shall 
pay to this Company Forty dollars, and those that take a 
Right in Wilksbury or Plynionth, shall pay Fifty Dol- 
lors ; and those that take a Right in Kingstown, shall pa}' 
Sixty Dollors, all for ye use of this Company, etc." - A 
committee was also appointed to take bonds from those 
who should be admitted as settlers. 

Lackawanna, or Lockaworna as then designated, being 
more remote from tlie main settlement, protected by block- 
houses or forts, and from its very isolation, up in the 
narrow valley, more exposed to wild beasts and Indians, 
than either Wilkes Barre or Kingston, although enjoying 
the same federative government, was offered to persons 
whose courage overreached their means, upon terms ap- 
parently more advantageous and easy. Of the original 
number of tw^o hundred and forty, who emigrated to 
Wyoming in 1763— all of whom w^ere male — only thirty- 
five were located along the LackaAvanna. In regard to 
these, who lived within reach of the block-house at Pitts- 
ton, it was voted, April 25, 1772, by the Susquehanna 
Company, ''tliat those 35 men that is now in ye town- 
ship of Lockow^orna, shall be entitled to all ye Com- 
pany es Right to sd. township." 

With a view" of imparting to the colony a healthy moral 
stamina, a committee of five persons were appointed at 
the same meeting, "to admit settlers into ye six mile 
township. But for no one of the committee to admit in 
settlers unless ye major part of said Committee be present 
to admit," and then to allow only "such as good, whol- 
som inhabitants" to settle. " 

December 17, 1771, "this meeting is opened and held 
by adjournment, voted, that Joseph David Sanford, Bar- 
nabas Cary, Elezer Cary, jun., Arter French, John Fra- 

' Westmoreland Records. ^ Ibid. 



116 HISTORY OF THE 

zier, Timothy Reine, Juii., Stephen Harden, and Caleb 
Bates, have each one a Settling Right in ye township.'" 

Not only had morality its defenders and advocates 
among the early settlers, but indiistry was considered 
such an essential qualijfication to the prosperity of the neAv 
settlement, that at a meeting of the inhabitants held in 
AVilkes Barre Fort, in December, 1771, it was voted "that 
Frank Phillips be admitted to Purchoys a settling Right 
in Lockaworna, Provided he pntsan Able Bodyed man on 
sd. Right, and Due Duty Equal to ye Rest of ye Settlers.'' 

April 29, 1772, voted "that Samuel Slougher is admit- 
ted in as a Settler, in Room of Mortin Nelson, in ye town- 
ship of Lockoworna/' and in January 13, 1772, voted 
"that David Carr is admitted in as a Settler in Locka- 
worna, and hes Given His Bond for Forty Dollors." 

By the old roadside in Pittston township, on the right 
as you descend the valley, about three miles up from 
Pittston, could be seen a few 3'ears since the debris of a 
chimney of one of the earliest cabins of the white man erect- 
ed in the valley in 1770. It was built by Zebulon Marcy, 
wdio emigrated from Connecticut in the spring of this 
year, in the twenty-sixth year of his age. He was brother 
of Ebenezer, who came into possession of this rustic dwell- 
ing some time afterward. 

Choosing this spot for his residence, upon the warriors' 
path, from its inviting soil and convenient location, his 
hut, formed from logs in the stern simplicity of the times, 
subsequently became famous for its genial liospitality. 

At the time of the Wyoming massacre, eight years after 
locating here, Ebenezer Marcy was engaged with his com- 
rades below in the defense of Wyoming from the ravages 
of the merciless Indians, Tories, and British, when the 
news that the brave defenders had retreated before the 
pursuing and mongrel horde, tiew through the settlement 
with astounding effect and rapidity. Hurriedly snatch- 

' Westmoreland Records. 



LACKAWANNA VAT-LKV. 117 

ing her children from the house, and securing a loaf of 
bread for the supperless fugitives, she lied from the val- 
ley on the evening of July 3, 1778, across the mountain 
to Stroudsburg, in company with all her neighbors thus 
left feeble and defenseless. "She was," says Miner, 
" taken in labor in the wilderness. Having no mode of 
conveyance, her sufferings were inexpressibly severe. 
She was able to drag her fainting footsteps but about 
two miles that day. The next day, being overtaken by a 
neighbor with a horse, she rode, and in a week's time 
was more than 100 miles with her infant from the place 
of its birth." The child born at this time, and subse- 
quently married twice, died a short time since in Wyo 
ming County. 

Marcy himself was a man of some local prominence in 
his day, and was chosen the first constable of Pittstou, in 
Januaiy, 1772. 

Barnabas Carey, Avhose right to settle in the townsliip 
was voted in 1771, pitched farther up the valley, wheic, 
from the fallen tree and the fresh-peeled bark, he fasii- 
ioned a cabin to afford him protection from the storms and 
the wolves. This was the first one erected by the white 
man ahote the Falls of the Lackawanna, and the honor 
of the achievement belongs to Carey. The next year he 
sold his claim to "the eight meadow Lott in ye Township 
Lockaworna to Jeremiah Blanchard for thirteen pounds 
and four shillings," ^ 

Constant Searles and John Phillips Avere among the 
Yankee emigrants who located in the valley in 1771. 
Frank Phillips, who was voted a settling right in "Lock- 
aworna" in December, 1771, was the fatiiei- of John, 
only fourteen years of age, and settled in the "gore," 
or wedged-like shape of land, lying between Pittston and 
Providence. 

Six 3^ears later, Phillips's farm was sold to his son, 

' Westmoreland Records, 1771. 



118 HISTORY OF TIIK 

John, for thirty pounds, current money. Among the 
five commissioners chosen to purchase land, whereon to 
erect the necessary public buildings, at the time of the 
formation of Luzerne County, in 1786, was John Phillips. 

After the Trenton Decree authorized a re-survey of the 
prolonged disputed lands in the seventeen old certified 
townships, Pennsylvania sent to Wyoming "200 flints 
and 2 Boxes of cartridges," because the inhabitants were 
reported "wrangling."^ At this time the Pennsylvania 
soldiers, excited and brutal with rum, and under the 
command of Captains Shrawder and Christie, began to 
lay open fields of grain for common pasturage, destroying 
every thing belonging to the Yankee settlers, while estab- 
lishing the boundaries of Pennsylvania, regardless of 
those of Connecticut. 

Phillips and his family were among those driven from 
their farms in 1784, in a manner so graphically desciibed 
by Hon. Charles Miner in his History of Wyoming : — 

"On the 13th and 14th of May the soldiers were sent 
forth, and at the point of the bayonet, with the most higli- 
handed arrogance, dispossessed one hundred and fifty 
families ; in many instances set fire to their dwellings, 
avowing the intention utterly to expel them from the 
country. Unable to make any effectual resistance, the 
people implored for leave to remove either up or down 
the river, as with their wives and children, in the state of 
the roads, it would be impossible to travel. A stern 
refusal met this seemingly reasonable lequest, and they 
were directed to take the Lackawaxen road, as leading 
most directly to Connecticut. But this way consisti^d of 
sixty miles of wilderness, with scarce a house ; the roads 
were wholly neglected during the war, and tliey then 
begged leave to take the Easton or Stroudsburg route, 
where bridges sjianned the larger streams, still swollen 
by recent rains. All importunities were vain, and the 

' See Pennsylvania Archives, 1784. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 119 

people lied toward tlie D(-la\vare, objects of destitution 
and pity that should have moved a heart of marble. 
About five hundred men, women, and children, with 
scarce provisions to sustain life, plodded their Aveary 
way, mostly on foot, the roads being impassable for 
wagons, mothers carrying their infants, and pregnant 
women literally wading the streams, the water reaching 
to their armpits, and at night slept on the naked earth, 
the heavens their canopy, and scarce clothes to. cover 
them. A Mr. John Gardner and John Jenkins, both aged 
men and lame, sought their way on crutches. Little 
children, tired with traveling, crying to their mothers for 
bread, which they had not to give them, sunk from ex- 
haustion into stillness and slumber, while the mothers 
could only shed tears of sorrow and compassion, till in 
sleep they forgot their griefs and cares. Several of the 
unfortunate sufferers died in the wilderness, others were 
taken sick from excessive fatigue, and expired soon after 
reaching the settlements. A widow, with a numerous 
family of children, whose husband had been slain in the 
war, endured inexpressible hardships. One child died, 
and sh.e buried it as she could beneath a hemlock log, 
probably to be disinterred from its shallow covering, and 
be devoured by wolves." 

A small mound, sheltered by a friendly hemlock, lies 
by the roadside in Wayne County, where the little one 
was buried. 

"One shocking instance of suffering is related by a 
survivor of this scene of death ; it is the case of a mother, 
whose infant having died, roasted it by piecemeal for the 
daily subsistence of her suffering children." ^ 

Elisha Harding, who formed one of this party, says that 
"the first night we encamped at the Capouse, the second 
at Cobbs, the third at Little Meadows (Salem), cold, 
hungry, and drenched Avith rain— the poor women and 

' Chapmau. 

■■■' '-^-'^^ 



120 HISTORY OF TFiE 

children suffering much. The fourth night at Lacka- 
waxen, fifth at Bloomington, sixth at Shehola, and seventh 
on the Delaware, where the people disbanded — some going 
up and some down the river." 

Pennsylvania repudiated this ferocious conduct of the 
soldiers, and at once indignantly dismissed the respective 
comj)anies engaged in proceedings so infamous.^ 

After the Compromising laws had pacified the valley, 
Phillips returned and took possession of his former farm. 

Timothy Keys, Andrew Hickman, and Mr. Hocksy 
settled in Providence Township in 1771. Keys was 
chosen constable of Providence, June 30, 1772. Among 
the first five women coming to Wyoming was the wife of 
Hickman. 

The Westmoreland Records inform us that "Augustine 
Hunt, one of ye Proprietors in ye Susquehanna Purchois 
has made a pitch of about one hundred and fifty aci-<'s of 
Land in Lockaworna township in 1772." 

John Taylor, with no companions but his ax, his rifie, 
and his faithful dog, early made a pitch in Providence on 
the elevation below H^^de Park, aftbrding such views of 
village and valley, and known throughout the valley as 
the "uncle Jo. Griffin farm." Mr. Taylor subsequently 
became a man of more than ordinary usefulness in the 
colony. He was a prominent member of a number of 
committees, which received their existence with the ex- 
pansion of the settlement, and he took an active pait in 
the social and political organizations of the day. 

Pitts-town, which was named in honor of the distin- 
guished advocate and defender of American interest, Wm. 
Pitt, as was Wilkes-Barre from the united names of two 
bold and eloquent champions of American rights in the 
British Parliament, was one of the original townships laid 
out by the Proprietors of the Susquehanna Company, 
and extended from Wilkes Barre to Providence. 



LACKAWAWA VALLKY. 121 

Among the early families here, were the Browns, 
Bennetts, Benedicts, Blanchards, Careys, St. Johns, 
Marcys, Sawyers, and Silbeys. One of the Pittston forts 
being erected on the farm of Brown, was named in honor 
of him, and was at the time of the Wyoming massacre 
occupied by a small company of men commanded by 
Captain Blanchard. 

This block-house was built in 1772. At a meeting of 
the proprietors and settlers held in Wilkes Barre, May 
20, 1772, it was voted "that ye Proprietors Belonging to 
ye town of Pittston Have ye Liberty to Go into their 
town, and there to fortytie and Keep in a Body Near 
together and Gourd by themselves until further notice 
from this Committee." ^ 

Samuel Harden was chosen collector for Pittston, and 
Solomon Johnson "for ye town of Providence," in 
December, 1772. 

Meadow lot. No. 13, in Lockawarna, was sold to Jere- 
miah Blanchard, in May, 1772, by Dr. Joseph Sprauge, 
-one of the proprietors of the town, and the first physician 
who practiced medicine in the valley. 

John Stevens was a proprietor in "ye township called 
ye Capouse Meadow." In May, 1772, he conveyed to 
John Youngs a settling right at Capouse Meadow, merely 
for the "consideration of ye Love, Good will and 
.affections I Have & Do Bare towards my Loving Son 
in Law, John youngs, son to my wife Mary."- 

IsAAC Tripp. 

At Capoose Meadow, where the rude bearing of 
Indian life had been modified by whites friendly in 
their intercourse and gaudy Avith their presents, acres 
•of rich woodlands had been surveyed and purchased 
for a few shillings in Connecticut currency, but no one 

' Westmoreland Records. " Ibid. 



122 HISTOKY (IF THE 

was willing to encounter its dangers or share attractions 
until Isaac Tripp, a man of five and tliirt}^, built for hiir/i 
self a shelter among the pines in 1771. 

Emigrating to the broader plains of Wyoming with the- 
original pioneers of 1769, and, finding the block-house at 
Mill Creek in possession of the Pennymites, prejjared, 
Avith a body of men commanded by Capt. Ogden, to dis- 
pute and enforce jurisdiction over the valley, Tripp and 
his companions, looking for no such chilly reception even 
amid tlie snows of winter, made preparations to recapture 
a prize of such vital importance to their existence as a 
part of a company or colony, "Isaak Tryp," was one 
of the Proprietors of the Susqehanna Company. He had 
seen some service in the French and Indian wars previous 
to this, while a few of his companions had been schooled 
in the raw exercises of the militia of Connecticut. All, 
however, who had adventured thus far into Wyoming, 
yet filled with the sullen redskins, were familiar with tlie 
use of the rifle, never failing in the hands of the woods- 
man, robust and self reliant, versed in the achievement 
of hook and line, and more skilled in securing the deer 
and tracking the bear, than in the more deceptive art of 
diplomatic cunning. 

With all their conceptions, however, of military disci- 
pline learned in the warfare of border life or practiced in 
the parks of their native inland villages, they were now 
completely outwitted by the superior tact of the Ogden 
party secure in the occupancy of the block-house. Ogden, 
says Miner "having only ten men able to bear arms, one- 
fourth only of his invading foe, determined to have recourse 
to negotiation. A very polite and conciliatory note was 
addressed to the commander of the forty, an interview 
respectfully solicited, and a friendly conference asked on 
the subject of the respective titles. Ogden proved him- 
self an accomplished angler. The bait was too tempting. 
Propose to a Yankee to talk over a matter especially 
which he has studied, and believes to be right, and you 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 123 

touch the most susceptible clioid that vibi-atos in liis 
heart. That they could out>-talk the Pennymites, and con- 
vince them the Susquehanna title^was good, not one of 
the forty doubted. Three of the chief men were deputed 
to argue the matter, viz. : Isaac Tripp and Benjamin 
Follet, two of the executive committee, accompanied by 
Mr. Vine Elderkin. No sooner were they within the 
block-house, than Sheriff Jenkins clapped a writ or their 
shoulders. — 'Gentlemen, in the name of the Common- 
wealth of Pennsylvania, you are my prisoners !' ' Laugh 
when we must, be candid when we can.' The Yankees 
were decidedly outwitted. By common consent the pris- 
oners were transported to Easton jail, guarded by Captain 
Ogden ; but accompanied in no hostile manner, by the 
thirtj'-seven remnants of the forty." 

Tripp was promptly liberated from jail by his friends, 
and returning again to the valley, was an efficient contrib- 
utor to the public weal, and an intelligent actor in the 
long, embittered dispute betAveen the Provincial authori- 
ties of Pennsylvania and those of the Colony of Con- 
necticut for AVyoming, before its peaceful and final 
solution. 

Upon the Westmoreland Records his name, or that of 
" Esq. Tripp,'- as he was familiarly called, often appears. 
At a meeting of the Susquehanna Company, held at 
Hartford, Ct., June 2, 1773, for the purpose of electing 
officers for the AVestmoreland Colony, Gideon Baldwin, 
Timothy Keys, and Isaac Tripp, were chosen Directors 
or Proprietors of Providence. 

The first recorded purchase of land in Providence by 
Tripp was made in 1774. This purchase embraced lands 
where stood the wigwams of Capoose. n])on the flats sub- 
sequently known as "Tripp's Flats." As this old deed 
possesses some local interest it is inserted entire. 

" To all People to whom these Presents shall come. 
Know ye that I Daniel Adams of west-morel and, in ye 



124 IIISTOKY OF THE 

County of Litchfield and Colon}^ of Connecticutt, in New 
England, for and in Consideration of Ninety pounds Cur- 
rant money, of Connectiputt, to me in hand, Paid Before 
3^e Ensealing hereof to my full satisfaction by Isooc Tripp, 
Esq., of ye same town, County, and Colony, aforesaid, ye 
Receipt whereof I am fully sattisfyed and contented and 
Do therefore freel}', fully, and absolutely Give, Grant, 
Bargain, Sell, alienate. Conva3^ and Confirm unto him, ye 
said Isooc Trypp, His Hairs, Exec ors. Admin ors. and as- 
sighns, for Ever all and singular one Certain Lott of land, 
Lying and Being in je township of Providence, Known 
by No. 14, Lying on the west side of Lockawarna River, 
and Butted and Bounded as follows : abuting East on sd. 
River ; west on sd. town Line, North and South on Land 
Belonging to sd. Tripp, and Contains b}^ Estimation 37i5 
acres, be ye same more or Less, Reference being had to 
ye Survay ( "f sd. town for ye more perticulerraents. Bounds 
thereof to be and Remain unto him ye sd. Isooc tripp, and 
to his heirs, Execu — ors, or Admin — ors, or assigns for 
Ever free and clear from me, ye sd. Daniel Adams, or any 
Heirs, Execu — ors, or Admin — ors, or assigns, or any 
other Persons by from or under me or au}^ part thereof, as 
witness, my hand this 7th Day of July, in ye year of our 
Lord, 1774, and in ye 14th year of his majosties Raign. 

"Signed, sealed, and Delivered In Presence of 

Danl. Adams. 
"Nathan. Denison and 
"Saml. Slatek, Je. 

" Received ye above Deed to Record July ye 8tli, a. d. 
1774, and Recorded By me. 

"EzEKiEL Peikce, clerk."^ 

At the time that Tripp located upon the Indian clearing 
already awaiting culture. Providence was designated in 
the ancient records as the "sixth town of ye Capouse 
Meadows. ' ' 

' Westmoreland Records, \71-L 




[RA TRIPP. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 127 

These once beautiful flats, now rooted into mines, and 
robbed of their natural beauty by tall coal work, with 
their accompanying culm or waste coal si)read over many 
a fair acre, perpetuate the names of their first white oc- 
cupants, and bring them down through generations into 
the hands of Ira Tripp, Esq., a gentleman of wealth, en- 
titled to no little consideration for those frank, popular 
attainments and social qualifications which mark, in the 
public mind, the rulings of the hour. 

The Scranton court-house, standing on the original 
farm of Ira Tripp, overlooks the ancient abode of Capoose, 
pointed out by a single tree. 

Isaac Tripp, the grandson of Isaac Tripp, Sen., came 
into the valley in 1774, and chose this inviting spot fur 
his residence.^ 

In October, 1773, Maj. Fitch Al(l«^n purchased of John 
"Stevens, of Wilkes Barre "one Certain Lott of Land Ly- 
ing in ye township of Providence, on ye North side of 
Lockaworna River ; sd. Lott is knoAvn by Number two 
-and Contains 870 acres." Fifteen pounds lawful cur- 
rency was the price given — about $4o. 

Provisions were so scarce in all the settlements, from 



' The following note, regarding Isaac Tripp, appears in the History of the 
Abington Baptist Association, a small volume, compiled a few years since by Rev. 
Edward L. Baily, A. M. : "This Isaac Tripp was in early life a resident at 
' Oapouse Meadows,' in the Lackawanna valley. In the eighteenth year of his 
age, and soon after the Wyoming massacre, he was taken captive by the Indians, 
and with others marched to Canada. On the way he experienced the most ex- 
cruciating sufferings from the gnawings of hunger and cruel treatment of the 
savages, who bound his hands behind him and compelled him to run the gauntlet. 
At Niagara he mot his cousiu, Miss Frances Slocum, who was also a captive from 
the Wyoming valley. They planned their escape, but their intentions being dis- 
•covered by their captors, they were separated, never more to meet on earth, and 
young Tripp was sold to the English and compelled to enter their service, in which 
he reluctantly continued until the close of the revolutionary war. He now re- 
turned to his early home and resumed the peaceful pursuits of the farm. He 
moved to Scott, Luzerne county, and finally settled in ihe Elkwoods, in Susque- 
hanna county. Hib wife died in Clifford, May lOtli, 1816, aged 67 years. He fol- 
lowed her to the grave April loth. 1820, aged 60 years. The remains of both now 
repose in the burj'ing ground ne (r Clifford corners." 



128 HISTORY OF THE 

Wyoming to Capoose, in the winter of 1773, that a party 
of persons, among whom was John Carey, were sent to 
Stroudsbiirg to obtain them. The distance was fifty 
miles through the forest, where all the intervening streams, 
being unbridged, had to be crossed upon ice, or forded, 
or swam. The party went the entire journey on foot, and 
returned to their half-ftimished friends with the needed 
flour. 

Neither Fitch, Youngs, nor Stevens made any improve- 
ment on their lands, still unchopped and unoccupied in 
1773. Fitch sold his purchase in J 774 to John Alden for 
eighty pounds, New York currency. It must be borne 
in mind that, after the original survey of the Connecticut 
Indian Purchase of the Susquehanna Company, all the 
land thus embraced was laid out in shares and half shares, 
many of which lay for years beyond the sound of the 
ax-stroke, while others, more favorably located, were 
sold by the proprietors of each town for a trifle, and re- 
sold by the purchaser to any one having the courage to- 
risk life or sacrifice any social relation among panthers, 
Indians, and wolves. 

Isaac Tripp, the grandson of Isaac Tripp the elder, was 
"taken prisoner in 1778, and two young men by the name 
of Keys and Hocksey ; the old gentleman the}^ (the In- 
dians) painted and dismissed, but hurried the others into 
the forest (now Abington) above Liggitt's Gap, on the 
warriors' path to Oquago. Resting one night, they rose 
the next morning, traveled about two miles, when they 
stopped at a little stream of water. The two young In- 
dians then took Keys and Hocksey some distance fiomi 
the path, and were absent half an hour, the old Indian, 
looking anxiously the way they had gone. Presently 
the death -whoop was heard, and the Indians returned, 
brandishing bloody tomahawks and exhibiting the scalps 
of their victims. Tripp's hat was taken from his head, 
and his scalp examined twice, the savages speaking 
earnestly, when at length they told him to fear noth- 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 129 

ing — he should not be hurt ; and carried him off ])ris- 
oner." ^ 

The Indians, finding Tripp disposed to yield gracefully 
to his new position without concern or restraint, painted 
his face with war-paint, as a protective measure against 
any warriors chancing to meet him, and sent him back to 
his home, at Capoose, where the next year he was shot 
by a party of savages from tlie lakes, while at work 
in the field, unconscious of danger. 

In the spring of 1803 two skulls, Avhite as snow, and 
some human bones, porous and weather-beaten by the 
storms of quarter of a century, were found in Abington, 
by Deacon Clark, upon the edge of a little brook passing 
thr<nigh Clark's Green, and were at this time supposed to 
be, as they probably were, the remains of Tripp's toma- 
hawked companions. 

Isaac Tripp, Sen., was shot near Wilkes Barre Fort, in 
1779, under the following circumstances : In the Revolu- 
tionary War, the British, for the purpose of inciting the 
savages to more murderous activity along the frontier and 
exposed settlements, offered large rewards for the scalps 
of Americans. As Tripp Avas a man of more than ordinary 
effi('i(^ncy and prominence in the colony, the Indians were 
often asked by the British why he Avas not slain. The 
unvarying ansAver Avas that "Tripp was a good man." 
He Avas a Quaker in his religious notions, and in all his 
intercourse Avith the Indians his manner had been so kind 
and conciliatory, that when he fell into their hands as a 
prisoner the year previous, at Capoose, they dismissed 
him unharmed, and coA^ered him Avith paint, as it was 
their custom to do with those they did not wish to harm. 

Rendering himself inimical to the Tories by the energy 
Avith Avliich he assailed them afterAvard in his eff'orts to 
protect the interests of the Wyoming Colony at Hartford, 
Avhither he had been sent to represent its grievances, a 

' Miner's History, p. 240. 



130 HISTORY OF THE 

double reward was offered for liis scalp, and, as he had 
forfeited their protection by the removal of the war-paint, 
and incurred tlieir hostility by his loyal struggles for the 
life of the Republic, he was shot and scalped the first time 
he was seen. 

WESTMORELAND. 

Up until this time (1774) the Susquehanna Company, 
struggling against every element adverse to its existence, 
had hoped that Wyoming might, by special authority from 
the king, be erected into a separate colony of its own, but 
the remonstrances of the Proprietary Government, inflexi- 
ble in its purpose to expel all power and people from the 
valley but- its own, combined with the war-feeling every- 
where generated and cherished throughout the American 
Colonies against the British Government, easily defeated 
a measure fraught with equal consequence to both of the 
contending parties. 

Under these circumstances, Connecticut, not forgetting 
that, by virtue of its charter, its possessions extended in- 
definitely to the West — even to the Pacific — yielded to the 
appeals repeatedly coming over the mountain from Wyo- 
ming, to extend official and parental protection to the set- 
tlement, assailed from within and without, passed through 
its General Assembly, in January, 1774, the following 
act: — 

"It is enacted that the Inhabitants dwelling within the 
Bounds of this Colony, on the AVest Side of tlie River Del- 
aware, be, and they are hereby made and constituted a 
distinct Town, with like Powers and Priviledges as other 
Towns in this Colony by Law have, within the following 
Bounds and Limits, viz' : Bounded East by Delaware Riv- 
er, North by tlie North Line of tliis Coloii}^, West by a Norrh 
and South Line across the Colony at fifteen miles distan h 
from a Place on Susquehanna River called Wyoming, and 
South by the South Line of the Colony, which Town is 
hereby annexed to the County of Litchfield, and shall be 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 131 

called by the name of Westmoreland : That Zebulon But- 
ler and Nathan Denison, Esquires, Inhabitants of said 
Town, are appointed Justices of the Peace in and for the 
County of Litchfield ; That the former is authorized and 
directed to issue a Warrant, as soon as may be, to notify 
the Inhabitants of the said Town of Westmoreland in said 
County, to meet at such Time and Place as lie shall ap- 
point, within said Town, to choose officers, and to do any 
other Business proper to be done at said Meeting ; and 

"That the Governor of this Colony is authorized and 
desired to issue a Proclamation, forbidding any Person or 
Persons wiiatsoever taking up, entring on, or settling any 
of the Lands contained or included in the Charter of this 
Colony, lying Westward of the Province of New York, 
without Liberty first had and obtained from the General 
Assembly of this Colony. 

"These Acts are made and passed by our Assembly, 
for the Protection and Government of the Inhabitants 
on the Lands mentioned, to preserve Peace and good 
Order among them, to prevent Hostilities, Animosities, and 
Contentions among the People there, to promote public 
Justice, to discourage Vice and Iniquity, and to put a 
Stop to Intruders entering on those Lands. 

"I am, with great Truth and Regard, Sir, 
"Your most Obedient, 

"Humble Servant, 

"JON™- TRUMBULL. 

"Honorable John Penn, Esquire."^ 

This act on the part of Connecticut gave a fresh impetus 
and marked out a new" era for the inland settlements. 
Wyoming, thus ceasing to exist as a distinct republic,' ac- 
knowledged only the laws and jurisdiction of Connecticut. 
The inhabitants of the valleys, always favoring peace and 
good order, naturally expressed a hope that their griev- 
ances, hitherto vexatious and fatal to their thrift, might be 

' Col. Rec, rol. x., pp. 151-2. " Chapman. 



132 HISTORY OF THK 

lessened somewhat, if not entirely removed, by this affilia- 
tion. The Revolution, however, gave a different and more 
patriotic direction to the spirit of independence early in- 
herited: else these intrepid sons, wielding alike the ax 
and the musket in either hand, would not have battled so 
long in vain for rights so stoutly upheld and denied them. 

WALLENPAUPACK SETTLEMENT. 

One of the most sluggish streams gathering its waters 
from the roof of the mountain dividing the Delaware and 
the Susquehanna, is the Wallenpaupack in Pike County, 
some thirty miles eastward of the Lackawanna, crossed 
by the solitary Indian path leading from the Delaware to 
Wyoming. Along this creek, the first permanent settle- 
ment began in 1774, and although miles of forest and 
mountain intervened, the earliest settlers, for many years, 
traveled over forty miles to Wilkes Barre, to election, 
court, and public meetings of great importance. "Some 
time between the years 1750 and 1760," says Hon. War- 
ren J. WoodAvard, Esq., in Miner's History of Wyoming. 
" a family named Carter settled upon the Wallenpaupack 
Creek. This is supposed to have been the first white ftini- 
ily that ever visited the neighborhood. The spot upon 
which the house was built is in view of the road leading 
from Sterling, in Wayne County, to the Milford and 
Owego turnpike, seven miles southwest from Wilsonville. 
The old Indian path, from Cochecton to Wyoming, crossed 
the Wallenpaupack about thirty rods below the house oT 
the Carters. During the French and Indian war, which 
commenced in 1756, the members of the family wore all 
murdered, and the house was burned by a tribe of Indians 
in the service of the French. When the emigi-ants from 
Connecticut arrived on the banks of the Wallenpaupack, 
the chimney of the house and a stone oven alone were 
standing. 

"When the first Wyoming emigrants from Connecticut 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 133 

reached the Wallenpaupack, tlie main body halted, and 
some pioneers were sent foi-ward, iji a westerly direction, 
to procure intelligence of the position of the country on 
the Susquehanna. The pioneers followed the Indian path 
before alluded to, leading from Cochecton in New York, 
across the Leckawaxen, to the point on the Wallenpau- 
pack below the Carter house, where there was an ' Indian 
clearing,' and thence to the 'Indian clearings' on the 
Susquehanna. This path crossed 'Cobb's Mountain.' 
The pioneers attained the summit, from which the Sus- 
quehanna was in view, in the evening, and Iniilt up a 
large fire to indicate to the settlers the point to which 
the}^ should direct their course. The next morning, the 
emigrants commenced their journey, building their road 
as they proceeded. That i-oad, leaving the Sterling road 
before mentioned about a mile down tlie creek below tlie 
site of the Carter house, is the one which is now con- 
stantly traveled between \Vilkes Barre and Milford. It 
is said to have been most judiciously located. The point 
on which the lire was built on Cobb's Mountain, was 
near the present residence of John Cobb, Esq., and is 
pointed out by the people residing on the Wallenpaupack 
to the present time. 

"At some period, shortly before the Revolutionary Wai-, 
a settlement was commenced at Milford, on the Delaware, 
now the capital of Pike County. The settlers were all 
Pennsylvanians. This was the only inhabited pai't of 
what now constitutes Wayne and Pike counties, except 
the Connecticut colony planted on the AVallenpaupack. 
The emigrants to the latter left Connecticut in 1774. 
Within a year after their arrival, two townships were 
erected under the names of Lackaway and Bozrah. The 
settlement extended four miles and a half along the creek. 
The farms still remain of the same size as originally fixed, 
and with two exceptions they still remain in the possession 
of the descendants of the settlers in 1774. 

" One of the first labors of the settlers after thi^r eini^-ra- 



134 HIS TOBY OF THE 

tion, was the erection of n fort. This fort, which was 
probably somewhat primitive in its construction, was a 
field containing about an acre, surrounded by a trench, 
into wliicli upright pieces of hewed timber were firmly 
fixed. The spot was selected from the circumstance of 
its containing a living spring. The fort was erected on 
the eastern side of the Sterling road, almost immediately 
opposite the point where the road leading through Salem, 
over Cobb's Mountain, and along the Lackawanna to the 
Wyoming settlements, called the 'Old Wyoming road,' 
branches off from the Sterling road. It is six miles south- 
west from the handet now marked on the maps as Wilson- 
ville. Within the inclosed space was a block-house, also 
built of squared pieces of hewed timber, upon the top of 
which was a sentry-box, made bullet-proof. There was, 
besides, a guard-house, standing just east of the block- 
house. The defenses were so constructed that a ritle-ball 
fired from the high ground on the east into the fort, would 
strike the palisades on the opposite side above a mini's 
head. After the rumors of the Indian troubles on the 
Susquehanna reached the Wallenpaupack, the settlers 
constantly spent the night in the fort. The spring, whose 
existence and situation governed the colonists in theij- 
selection of a stronghold, still bubbles by the way-side, 
and nothing but a pile of loose stones indicates to the 
traveler the formidable neighboihood to which it has been 
exposed " 

JAMES LEGGETT. 

The loose-tongued tributary of the Lackawanna com- 
ing with shout and foam through the deep notch in the 
mountain between Abington iind Piovidence, tAvo miles 
north of Scranton, known as "Leggett's Creek," derived 
its name from James Leggett who emigrated from "ye 
Province of New York," in 1775, and erected his rude 
bark cabin at the mouth of the creek, still bearing his 
name. In the original draught of the township of 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 185 

Providence by tlie Connecticut Siisquelianua Company 
tlie wild land where Leggett cleared, had been allotted 
to Abraham Stanton. This was in 1772. In 1773 lie 
transferred his right to John Staples. By a vote of the 
Susquehanna Company, Staples' s claim to this forest- 
covered part of the township, was declared forfeited be- 
cause of some dereliction of duty. It was next granted 
to David Thayer in 1774. Like preceding owners, neither 
of whom had cut a tree or cleared a foot of land, h(i 
escaped from ownership without becoming either richer 
or poorer by selling this and several tracts of land along 
upper Capoose to James Leggett in June, 1775, who was 
the first white man to make a clearing above Providence 
Village. 

A little distance above the grist-mill of the late Judson 
Clark, Esq., in Providence, Leggett cleared a small spot 
to show the fertility of the soil, where he built his cabin 
on the bank of the creek in 1775 ; but the exciting aspect 
of border life, often rendered appalling by the howl of 
the wolf, or the whoop of th(^ red-man reluctant to depart 
from a valley he had loved and lost, contributed so little 
U) charm the solitude of his domestic life, that he aban- 
doned his stumpy new land and retired to White Plains, 
New York. 

After the close of the Revolutionary struggle, in which 
he took an honorable part, he 'returned to liis clearing 
in Providence, and erected upon this creek tlie first saw- 
mill clattering in this portion of the Lackawanna. 

Benjamin Baily purchased a lot from Solomon Strong, 
below that of Leggett' s, in 1775, selling it again the next 
year to Mr. Tripp "for a feAV furs and a hint gun."^ In 
1777, Mathew Dalson bought 375 acivs of land on "ye 
Capous River so called," bounded on the north by 
" Lands belonging to one Loggit'"- This purchase in- 
cluded lands now known as "Uncle Josh Griffin's farm.*' 

' Westmoreland Records, 1777. ' Ibia. 



136 IlISTOKT OF J HE 

While the pioneers up the Lackawanna were thus one 
by one stretcliing the boundaries of the settlement with 
vigorous stroke and handspike, Wyoming, feverish with 
the sanguinary and intermitting character of the contest 
alternating now with success and then with the expulsion 
of one party or the other, received from the young, but 
giant American Congress, the following resolution, dated 
ill Congress, Dec. 20, 1775 :— 

"Whereas, a Dispute Subsists between some of the In- 
habitants of the Colony of Connecticut, Settled under the 
Claim of the Said Colony on the Lands near Wioming, on 
the Susquehannah River, and in the Delaware Country, 
and the Inhabitants Settled under the Claim of the pro- 
prietaries of Pennsylvania, which Dispute it is appre- 
hended will, if not Suspended during the present Troubles 
in these Colonies, be productive of pernicious Conse- 
quences which may be very prejudicial to the common 
Interest of the united Colonies — therefore, 

"Resolved, That is the Opinion of this Congress, and it 
is accordingly recommended tliat the contending parties 
immediately cease all Hostilities and avoid every Appear- 
ance of Force untill the Dispute can be legally decided : 
that all property taken and detained be restored to the 
original Owners, that no Interruption be given by either 
party to the free passing and repassing of persons behav- 
ing themselves peaceably throngli said disputed Tei-ri- 
tory, as well by land as Water, without Molestation, either 
of person or property ; that all persons seized on and 
detained on Account of said Dispute, be disinissed, and 
permitted to go to their Respective Homes, and that all 
things being put in the Situation they were before the 
late unhappy Contest, they continue to behave themselves 
peaceably on their respective possessions and Improve- 
ments untill a legal Decison can be had on said Dispute, 
or this Congress shall take further Order thereon. And 
nothing herein done shall be construed in prejudice of 
the Claims of either party. 



LACKAWANNA VAI.LKY. 137 

" December 21st. 
'' Ordered, that an autlientic Copy of the Resolution 
passed yestei-day, relative to the Dispute between the 
people of Connecticut and Pennsylvania be transmitted 
to the contending parties. 

" Extract from the Minutes. 

"CHAS. THOMSON, Sec''."^ 

This resolution, by its temporary suspension of the 
authority of the land-jobbers of Pennsylvania, gav»- 
partial repose to Wyoming and Lackawanna even in the 
midst of Avar, while the inhabitants, long harassed by 
fratricidal warfare, hoped to witness gleams of approach- 
ing peace. 

FIRST ROAD FROM PITTSTON TO THE DELAWARE. 

During the year 1772, the first road from Pittston to the 
Delaware Avas made by the inhabitants. Previous to this, 
the Governor of Pennsylvania, at an official intervieAV with 
Teedyuscung, in March, 1758, suggested to him the pro- 
priety of opening a great road from the head- waters of 
the Susquehanna down through Wyoming to Shamokin, to 
which the shrewd chief, from motives of interest, objected. - 

The nearest point from the Westmoreland Colony to the 
settlement on the DelaAvare in the vicinity of Stroudsburg, 
was about forty miles. From this the valle}^ was separated 
by a country whose general features partook strong] }' of 
the sternness of the times, Avhile the wilderness from Ca- 
poose eastward, swarming Avith beasts and savages, had 
through it no other road than that built with difficulty by 
the first party of emigrants to Wyoming, in 1769. 

This followed the Avarriors' trail, which was simply 
widened by the felling of large trees and the removal of 
a few troublesome stones for the passage of a Avagon. 

' Col. Records, 1775. " Col. Rec. vol. viii., p. 55. 



16b HISTORY OF THE 

Paths through the forest, made by the Indian centnriea 
before, and trodden by the race that greeted the Pilgrims 
from the Mayflower' s deck, or trees marked by the hunter 
or ax-man scouting far away from his rocky homestead, 
furnished the only guidance along the forest profound in 
the depth and extent of its solitude. 

This natural privation to every frontier settlement in the 
earlier history of the country — the absence of roads — and 
the necessity of better communication with the parent 
State, or the nearer villages toward the Hudson, induced 
the proprietors and settlers holding their meeting in 
Wilkes Barre, October 2, 1772, to vote "that Mr. i)ur- 
kins of Kingstown, Mr. Carey of Lockaworna, Mr. Goss 
for Plymouth, Mr. Danl. Gore for wilkesbarre, Mr. Wil- 
liam Stewart for Hannover, are appointed a com tee to 
Draw subscriptions & se what they Can Git sighned hy 
ye adjourned meeting for ye making a Rode from Dille- 
ware River to Pitts-town." 

At the adjourned meeting, held October 5, 1772, it 
was " voted that Esq. Tryp, Mr. John Jenkins, Mr. Phil- 
lip Goss, Mr. John Durkins, Captain Bates, Mr. Daniel 
Gore, Mr. william Stewart are appointed Comtee-meii to- 
mark out ye Rode from Dilleware River to Pitts-town,'' 
etc.i 

This committee were to act until the completion of the 
road, October 19, 1772, "voted that Esq. Tryp is ap- 
pointed to oversee those persons that shall from time to 
time be sent out from ye severall towns to work on ye Road 
from Dilleware River to this & so that ye work be Done 
according to ye Directions of ye Com'^'^'', that was sent out 
to mark ye Road."' 

This road, then considered no usual achievement, was 
commenced in November, 1772 ; every person owning 
a settling right in the valley, or on "ye East Branch 
of the Susquehanna River," from the Indian village of 

1 Westmoreland Records, 1772. ^ Ibid. 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 13'J 

Capoose to tlic niontli of the stream, assisted toward its 
construction. 

Wages paid tlien would liaidly tempt tlie sluggard of 
to-day from his covert, for it was " voted, that those Per- 
sons that shall Go out to work on ye Rode from Dilleware 
River to ye westermost part of ye Great Swamp' Shall Have 
three sillings ye day Lawfnll money for ye time they Avork 
to ye Exceptance of ye overseors ; and from ye Great 
Swamp this way. Shall Have one shilling and sixpence pr. 
Day and no more."- 

Isaac Tripp being appointed to oversee the work, was 
allowed "Five Shillings Lawfull money pr. Day." TJiis 
rough, hilly road, quite if not more important in its con- 
sequence to the people of the inland settlement of that day 
than any other pike or railroad subsequently has been to 
the valley, was at length completed, and it is said to have 
been judiciously located. 

MILITARY OUGANIZATION. 

When this road was built, times were indeed perilous. 
Ninety-live years ago the settler fought against foes more 
savage and exasperated than the yellow panther or the 
beai-. People in our day, familiar onl}^ with the smooth 
current of rural life, can hardly estimate the exposure and 
insecurity of that period. The pioneer, as he toiled on th<^ 
plain or in the narrow clearing, kept closely at his side liis 
sharpened knife and loaded musket, expecting every rustle 
of the leaf, every sound wafted by the gale springing uj) 
from the west, to mnounce th(^ approach of the savage. 
And even when they slept within their lonely cabins, 
their arms stood freshly primed beside them awaiting the 
appearance of the foe. 

In 1772, it was voted that eacii and erery settler should 
provide himself with a flint-lock and ammunition, and 

' This is now known as tlie "Shades of Death." ^ Westmoreland Record^. 



140 HISTORY OF THE 

continue to guard around the threatened plantations until 
furtlicr notice. 

In fact, the existence of all the settlements, as Connecti- 
cut settUments, on the Lackawanna or Susquehanna, be- 
came so doubtful at times, from the persistent assaults of 
the Pennymites, and the incursions of the savages, more 
stealthy yet k-ss feared, that the settlers, occupied with 
thoughts of their common safety, met QYevy fourteen days 
to practice military discipline and tactics. 

At a meetins of the inhabitants and proprietors held 
March 22, 1778, it was voted "that the Com tee of Set- 
tlers be Desired to send to the several towns or to their 
Comtee Requiring them to Call all the Inhabitants in Each 
of ye said towns to meet on Thursday Next at five a 
Clock in ye afternoon on sd. Day in some Convenient 
place in sd. town, and that tliey then Chouse one Person 
in Each of sd. towns as an officer to muster them & so that 
all are oequipt according to Law w^ith fire arms and am- 
munitions, & that they Chuse two Sergants & a Clerk, & 
that the sd. Chieff offic(n- is Hereby Commanded & Directed 
to Call ye Inhabitants together once in 14 Days for ye 
future until this Company orders otherwise, & that in 
Case of an allarm or ye appearance of an Enemy, he is 
Directed to Call ye sd. Inhabitants together & stand for 
ye Defense of ye sd. towns & settlements without any 
further order." ^ 

Order and discipline were not only observed in a mili- 
tary point of view, but were carried into every social. 
commercial, and domestic arrangement. 

Thus by paying a trifle, settlers had voted to them an 
ear marh for cattle and sheep. The Records tell us that 
"Joseph Staples, his Earmark a square Hole through ye 
Left Ear.'' "Job Tryp ye 2nd, His Ear mark— a smooth 
Cross of ye Left Ear, & a Half penne ye fore side of Each 
Ear/ ' ' ' William Ray nold, his Ear mark a swallow' s tail 
m ye left Ear & a Half Cross on ye Right Ear. 

' Westmoreland Records. 



LACKAAVAN.NA VALLKY. 141 

"Entered Ai)ril 28tli, 1774, pr. rr.e Ezekiel Pierre, 
Clerk." 

John Pliillip's ear mark was "a smootli cross of ye 
Right Ear & a Half penney ye fore side ye same." 

Swine, too, had rigid laws imposed upon tliem. 

A Avandering one having intruded or broken into Mr. Ru- 
fus Lawrence's field of oats, " back in the woods," dama- 
ging thereby 15 bushels of oats, '^ August ye 23d, 1777, 
then ye above stray Hog was sold to ye Highest Bidder, 
& Simon Hodds was ye Highes Bidder, and Bid her of at 

D. 1 3 3 

Constable fees for Posting tlie Hog 2 3 

And travil to Kingstown District () 13 

Selling ye Hog 3 

Clerk's Fees for Entiring, &c 10 



1 10 i) ■■ 

KKLTGIOX, TP:MPERANCE, AND STILL-HOUSES. 

As there are no Colonial nor private records to l)*^ found 
of the early cliurch movements in the Lackawanna Val- 
ley, even if any were made at the time, it is extremely 
difficult, if not quite impossible, to form any thing like a 
correct estimate of the moral and religious standard of 
the settlers at that day. 

For religious purposes alone, the old Christian church 
standing in Hyde Park, was, with three exceptions, the 
first one erected in the valley. This was built in 1836. 
Some seven years previous to this, a church had been 
erected in Carboudale ; in 1832, one was erected in Blake- 
ley ; in 1834, one was raised in Providence, and blown 
down the same year. The plain, substantial school-house 
or log- cabin, standing by the road-side, furnished hospi- 
table places where meetings were held, without display 
or restraint, for very many years. 

The French and Indian war, running from 1754 to 1763. 
impeded religious advancement throughout the entiie 
Colonial dependencies, while the Indian troubles subse 



142 HISTOKT OF THE 

quent to that period, the E evolutionary struggle, as well 
as the intestinal warfare in Wyoming, all seem to have 
been alike fatal to morals and life. 

" Bundling," that easy but wicked habit of our grand- 
fathers, ajjpears to have been wonderfully prevalent at 
an early date along the valley, as well as in many other 
portions of the country, and was not unfrequently at- 
tended with consequences that might naturally have been 
expected by a philosopher. Besides this, there is every 
reason to believe that the current morals of the day liad 
the greatest liberty of standard, and that one prominent 
and almost universal characteristic of the people Avas the 
love of ichislii/^ which was as terrible then as now. As 
early as 1757, it was found that giving an Indian half a 
gill of whisky, was attended with bad consequences.^ 

The sale of whisky to them was wholly stopped and 
forbidden by the authorities, in 1765, as it was perceived 
that much of the murderous agitation in the forest was 
caused by rum.- 

At Capoose or Wyoming, Indians were not permitted to 
drink the inspiring "tire- water," as can be seen by a vote 
of " the Propriators and Settlers Belonging to ye Susque- 
liannah Purchase Legolly warned and Held In Wilkes- 
barre, December 7th, 1772. V^oted that Asa Stevens, 
Daniel Gore, and Abel Reine are appointed to Inspect 
into all ye Houses that Sell or Retail Strong Drink on 
forfiture of his or their Slettling Right or Rights, and 
also forfit ye whole of ye Remainder of their Liquor to 
this Company, and that ye Com*'''' above are appointed to 
take care of ye Liquoi- Immediately." 

The Yankee-like and aureeable provision of having the 
liqu<»r forfeited, and the immediate care that was doubt- 
less directed to it by those to whom it was intrusted, did 
not prevent its sale to the thirsty warriors, who were tur- 
bulent and dangerous when under its influence. Their 

' Col. Kec. vol. viii., p. 11. ' Ibid., vol. ix., p. 500. 



LACKAWANNA VAI,r,EY. 143 

squaws, during tlieir drunken frolics, were often cruelly 
beaten, and sometimes badly wounded. 

Measures still more stringent and severe were adopted 
b}' the inhabitants afterward to prevent access to it by the 
neighboring savages. It was "voted that no Person or 
Persons, settlers or forrinors Coming into this place shall 
at any time hereafter Sell or Give to any Indian or Indians 
any Spiritous Lickquors on ye forjUures of all such 
Lickors and ye whole of all their Goods and Chattels, 
Rights, and Effects that they Have on this Purchase ; and 
also to be voted 'out of this Company, unless upon some 
extraordinary reason, as sickness, etc., without Liberty first 
had and obtained of ye Comtee of Settlei's, or Leave from 
ye Com'" that is appointed to Into them affairs."^ 

In 1772 there was but one licensed house in the valL^y 
to sell spirituous liquor. This committee, composed of 
Avery, Tripp, and others, met in Wilkes Barre, in June. 
1772, '•'■at six a Clock in ye forenoon.^- where, in the 
simple language of the day, they resolved that, " Whereas 
there is and may be many Disorders Committed by ye 
Retailing of Spiritons Lichquor in Small Quanteties to ye 
Indian Natives, which Disorders to prevent it is now 
Voted, that there shall be but one Publick house to Retail 
Speriteous Lichquors in small Quonteties in Each of the 
first towns, and that Each Person for ye Purpose of Re- 
tailing, as aforesd. shall be appointed by tlie Comtee they 
Belong ; and that they and each of them shall be under 
the Direction of sd. Comtee, by whom they are appointed. 
Not Repugnant to ye Laws of the Colony of Connecticutt, 
and that such Retailors that shall not Duly observe such 
Directions and Restrictions as the}^ shall severally receive 
from sd. Comtee, shall on Complaint made to this Com- 
pany, shall see Cause to Inflict, Not Exceeding his or 
their Settling Right, Regard being Had to ye Nature and 
agrevation of ye offence. "" 

' Westmoreland Records, 1772. » Ibid. 



144 HISTORY OF THE 

At this time there was no stUl-house in the colony. An 
embargo was, for a short time, laid upon the transporta- 
tion of grain. Dec. 18, 1772, it was voted at the town 
meeting, " that no Person or Persons Now Belonging to 
the Susquhannah Purchase, from the 18th Day of this 
present December, until ye first Day of May Next, shall 
sell to any person or Forrinor or Stranger any Indian 
Corn, Rye, or AVheat to Carry Down the River out of ye 
Limits of this Purchase." 

In fact, the amount of grain then raised both in Wyo- 
ming and Lackawanna, was so scanty and limited, that 
within all the country now embraced by Luzerne County, 
no TtaJf bushel measure was required until 1772. It was 
then voted " that this Company shall at ye Cost & Charge 
of this Company as soon as may be, send out to ye Neai- 
est Connty town in ye Coloney's, & Procure a Sealed 
Half Bushel & a peck measure & one Gallon pot, Quoi t 
pott, point pot. Half point & Gill measure, for a Standard 
and Rule for this Company to by soon as may, and al^o 
sutable weights as ye Law Providedes, etc.'' 

Nothing, how^ever, contributed so much toward estab- 
lishing still-liouses here than the absence of a market for 
the grain raised upon the lowlands in great abundance. 
Whisky had a commercial and an accepted importance, 
superior to the depreciated Continental currency, besides it 
had the virtue of always being ready and practical in its 
application. One gallon of whisky, being worth fifteen or 
twenty cents, was deemed equivalent to a bushel of rye. 
Wheat was carried in huge wagons to Easton, a distance 
of nearly seventy miles through the wilderness, and ex- 
changed for large iron kettles for boiling maple sap into- 
sugar. The journey generally took a week, and the wheat 
brought from seventy to eighty cents per bushel. The 
kettles were hired out to persons having maple woods ;. 
one pound of sugar per year being given for each gallon 
held by the rented vessel. The maple sugar, run into 
cakes of every conceivable variety and size, was worth 



LACKAAVANNA VALLEY. 145 

Jive cents per pound, and was for a long time the only 
kind used in the settlement. 

The isolated condition of the settlers, stern and somber 
in many respects, was not without its gleams of sunshine. 
When the wool was gathered from the sheep, or the well- 
dressed flax ready for the spindle, the young and bloom- 
ino- girls, according to the custom of the people, assem- 
bled at some point in the neighborhood, generally under 
the shade of some tree, with their •' spinning-wheels ;" 
where, in a single afternoon, knot after knot of yarn came 
from their nimble hands, which afterward was woven and 
whitened into sheets for the coming bride. Dressed in 
red-dyed fabrics, manufactured by their own tidy hands, 
they brought with their simple gear and glowing clieeks 
more pleasure, and gave more artless charms to the 
maiden not ashamed to toil in field or house, than all the 
daubs of to-day bestow upon the thoughtless wearer. 

In tlie clear, crisp edge of an evening in autumn, came 
troops of boys from remote i)arts of the valley, on foot or 
on horseback, as was the custom to travel from place to 
place ; if women rode, it was behind the man upon the 
horse's back. As tlie spinning or husking ceased, the 
enjoyments of the evening began. The supper-table was 
now spread by clean hands, with rye-bread, pumpkin- 
pies, " Jonny-cake," and dough-nuts, whisky, and rich 
milk, and when all were gathered around it, many were 
the good wishes and sweet words whispered behind a 
j)ile of dough-nuts or friendly bowl. Some boisterous 
games closed up the amusements of the evening, when in 
the soft light of an autumn moon, the "gals" — as all 
women at that day were called — wended their way 
slowly homeward with their beaus. 

In accordance with the New England habit, Saturday 
night, if any, was observed instead of Sunday evening. 
With the sunset of Saturday night all labors closed until 
the following Sunday at sundown. The youth went to 
see his sweetheart on Saturday evening, as it then was 



146 HisTOJRY OF thp: 

considered the regular time for courting. As "many 
bands make light work" the older people often met for 
a "logging bee," — a way of destroying logs, by rolling 
them in heaps and burning them ; which was at one 
time the only mode of getting rid of some of the finest 
timber growing in a new country, before railroads, with 
their iron nets caught up the products of the forest from 
the spoiler's handspike. 

The coarser grain being turned into the still-house, 
made whisky so cheap that no " husking," "raising," or 
"logging bee," nor any public business or social meet- 
ings of the inhabitants took place without this abun- 
dant product of the still. 

The negative spirit of morality prevailing in all the 
settlements as early as 1773, not coming up to the rigid 
standard of New England proprietary, led the better class 
of inhabitants, at a meeting of the Proprietors held at 
Wilkes Barre, Feb'y 16, of this year, even in the midst 
of commotion, to appoint a committee composed of 
William Stewart, Isaac Tryp, Esq., and others " to draw 
a plan in order to suppress vise and immorality that 
abounds so much amongst us, and carry ye same before 
ye next meeting."^ 

Twenty-five years later, the progressive measures of 
public morals are recorded in the following curious deed 
of land, bearing date August 15, 1798, from Messrs. Bald- 
win and Faulkner to Joseph Fellows : — 

" Know all Men by these Presents, that we Waterman 
Baldwin & Robert Faulkner, both of Pittstown in the 
County of Luzerne, in the State of Pennsylvania, being 
desirous to promote the interest and general Welfare 
of said Pittstown, and to encourage and enable Josepli 
Fellows of the said Town, County and State, To erect 
a Malt-house and Beer-house, lohlch we conceloe will 
prove of general utility to our neiglihorhood, as also in 

' Westmoreland Records, 1773. 



LACKAWANXA VALLEY. lit 

consideration of i^//% c<^n^s to each of us paid by the 
said Joseph FelloAVS to our full satisfaction, &c., sell to 
said Fellows a certain piece of land for the purposes 
just named." 

In 1800, eight still or beer houses stood along the Lack- 
awanna from its mouth to the upper border of Capoose, 
in prosperous operation, located as follows : Asa Dimock 
and Joseph Fellows, each had one never idle in Pittston ; 
Mr. Hubbuts, another in Lackawanna ; Benjamin and 
Ebenezer Slocum owned two in Slocum Hollow ; Captain 
John Vaughn and Mr. Stevens operated one in upper 
Providence (now Blakeley), while Stephen and Isaac 
Tripp each ran with vigor their separate stills upon 
Tripp's Flats ; all distilling the cheap and surplus corn and 
rj'e into a beverage finding a ready market. Located as 
it were almost before every man's door, these institutions, 
looked upon with favor hy the yeonuuiry of the valley, 
<lrew from the ripened grain the bewildering draught, used 
fioui tlie cradle to the grave. Children put to sleep by 
eating bread soaked in Avliisky and maple sirup, gave no 
tiouble to mother or nurse, as they grew rapidly in stature 
and good-nature. And yet popular as was this beverage 
everywhere in Pennsylvania, striking tlie brightest intel- 
lects or narcotizing the feeblest conceptions, its adultera- 
tion was so well understood by Daniel Broadhead. com- 
mander of Fort Pitt in 1780, who, when officially informed 
that a requisition for 7,000 gallons of whisky had been 
made for the troops in th ■ District of Westmoreland, 
indulged in the hope that " we shall yet be allowed some 
liquor which is lit to driuk.'" ' 

If the morals of the community a century ago, took some 
romantic strolls to suit the taste or conditio.i of the pio- 
neers, they were in a great measure vindicated by the 
necessities which instituted them. But little gold or 
silver found its way into the settlement, bank ])ills were 

' Pa. Arcli., IT SO, p. (UL 



148 HISTORY OF THE 

unknown, and as the Bevolutionary Scrip, treasured by 
few, had but indifferent value, the commercial agency of 
whisky was recognized in all the laws of trade Avitli tin- 
same uniformity and force that the Indians in their ]M)lit- 
ical economy acknowledged the currency of zeaioant or 
wampum. Property changed hands, and many a settler 
acquired a peaceful title to wild domains by the exchange 
of a few gallons of whisky. 

These still-houses were well patronized, and brought 
incipient fortunes to their possessors, because they were 
thus sustained by men who prized and practiced the 
largest latitude of liberty. 

In 1788, the only person recommended to the Supreme 
Executive Council of Pennsylvania as suitable to keep a 
house of entertainment in Pittston, was Waterman Bald- 
win. The next year he was indicted for keeping a tip- 
pling-house, and lined live pounds. The next person in 
the Lackawanna Valley receiving a license from tiie 
Governor of Pennsylvania to open a tavern^ in 1791, was 
Johnathan Davies. 

SAW AND GRIST MILLS. 

Logs rolled up in their rough state into a log-house, 
with every crevice chinked with mud, or bark peeled 
from the tree and shaped by the aid of young saplings 
into a wigwam-like cabin, rude and diminutive in out- 
line, formed the only dwelling of the pioneer a century 
ago. Ash-trees ungracefully split by the beetle and 
wedge into thin layers, or the more readily prepared 
bark, aiforded roofing, whose special purpose seemed to 
be to let in every unwelcome element, without regard to 
economy or comfort. 

As the settlement expanded up the rich and narrow 
valley, the need of a saw and grist mill became so urgent, 
that in the summer of 1774, one of each was built by the 
township of Pittstown below "Ye Great Falls in the 



LACKAWANNA YAI.LKV. 140 

Lackawanna River." ^ Tlie same year, tbe}^ were both 
purcliased by Solomon Strong, and iVom him tliey passed 
into the hands of Garrit Brinkoikoof, July 6, 1775, They 
were the first mills erected on tlie bank of the Lacka- 
wanna. After doing good service to the settlement, both 
mills were destroyed, eitlier by the spring freshets or the 
torch of the Tories and Indians, leaving in 1778 but a sin- 
gle dwelling unharmed along the entire Lackawanna — that 
of Ebenezer Marcy. The waterfall here was so admirably 
adapted to mill purposes, and the straight pine, green 
with its foliage, running from creek to mountain, seemed 
so easy of conquest, that Solomon Finn and Elephat L. 
Stevens were induced to build a saw-mill at this point 
in 1780. Down the steep bank, oppositi^ the upper end 
of Everhart's Island in Pittston, half a mile above the 
depot of the L. & B. R. R., tottei- the walls of a fallen 
grist-mill, once standing upon tlie foundation of this old 
saw-mill. The song of its jarring saw, sent far up and 
down the wooded glen in olden times, long since has 
ceased to tell the story of its former usefulness and 
gloiy^. 

In 1798, Isaac Trip]) and his son Stephen, built a ^mall 
grist-mill on Leggitfs Creek, in Providence, but the dam, 
thrice built and thrice washed away, owing to defect! \e 
construction, proving a failure, the mill was abandoned. 
The next grist-mill built upon this stream still farther up 
in the Notch, was erected in 1815 by Ei)hraiui Leach. 

A saw-mill was built upon the Lackawanna, in Blakele}' 
Township in 1812, by Moses Vaughn ; in 1814, Timothy 
Stevens, a mill-wriglit of some character, erected a grist- 
mill above this point ; in 1816, Edmund Harford began 
another upon one of the fairest of the upper tiibutaries 
of the Wallenpaupack, in Wa}ne County, a few miles 
above the ancient Lackawa settlement. 

'Westmoreland Records. 1774. 



150 IIISTOKY OF THK 



DR. JOSEPH SPEAUGE. 



With the first pai-ty of adventurers coming into Wyo- 
ming, there came no physician, because tlie invigorating 
character of exercise and diet enjoyed by the pioneer, 
whose daily life, enlivened, by the choir of fidling trees 
or the advancing ax, knew the want of no medical repre- 
sentative, until Dr. Joseph Sprauge came from Hartford 
in 1771. 

Of the yet uninhalnted forest, called in the ancient 
records, "Ye Town of Lockaworna," whose upper 
boundaries extended nearly to the present village of 
Scranton, Dr. Sprauge was one of the original proprie- 
tors. To dispose of lots or pitches to the venturing 
woodsman, probably contributed more to bring him 
hither than any expectation of professional eniolimients 
or advantage in a wilderness, making, in the hands of the 
Indian, a materia W(?(^'/c'« which no disease could gainsay 
or resist. 

His first land sales were made in May, 1772.^ Fo]- a 
period of thirteen years, with the exception of the sum- 
mer of 1778, Dr. Sprauge lived near the Lackawanna, 
between Springbrook and Pittston, in hap])y seclusion, 
fishing, hunting, and farming, until, with the other Yan- 
kee settlers, he was driven from the valley, in 1784, by 
the Pennymites. He died in Connecticut the same yeai'. 

His widow, known throughout the settlement far and 
near, as " Uranny Sprauge," returned to AVyoming in 
1785, and lived in a small log-liouse then standing in 
Wilkes Barre, on the southwest coiner of Main and Union 
streets. She was a worthy old lady, prompt, cheeriul, 
successful, and, at this time, the sole aceouchtur in all 
the wide domain now embraced by Luzerne and Wyoming 
counties. Although of great age, as late as 1810 her ob- 
stetrical practice surpassed that of any physician in this 

' See Westmoreland Records, 1772 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 151 

portion of Pciins^ylvaiiia. For attending a rase of ac- 
couclienieiit, no matter Iioav distant the journey, Iioav long 
or fatiguing tlie detention, this sturdy, faithful woman 
invariably charged one dollar for services rendered, 
although a larger fee was never turned away, if any one 
Avas able or rash enough to offer it. 

DK. WILLIAM HOOKER SMITH AND OLD FORGE. 

If the Lackawanna Valley owes its earliest explora- 
tions and settlement wholly to Moravian fugitives, who, 
to escape persecution, fled from the banks of the Neckar 
and the Elbe to the yet untroubled plateau above the 
Blue Mountains, in 1742, it owes to the memory of the 
late Dr. William Hooker Smith, whose mind flrst rec- 
ognized and faintly developed its mineral treasures, its 
grateful acknowledgments. 

He emigrated from "ye Provin(;e of New York," ^ and 
located in the Wilkes Barre clearing in 1772, where he 
])urchased land in 1774. 

The Doctor's father was a Presbyterian clergyman liv- 
ing in the city of New York, and the only minister there 
of this denomination in 1732; and such was the feeble- 
ness of his congregation, that he preached one-third of his 
time at White Plains." 

As a surgeon and physician, his abilities were of such 
high order that he occupied a position in the colony, as 
gratifying to him as it was honorable to those enjoying 
his undoubted skill and experience. With the exception 
of Dr. Sprauge, Dr. Smith was the only physician in 
1772 living between Cochecton and Sunbury, a distance 
of one hundred and flfty miles. 

The formation of Luzerne County created positions of 
trust and honor, among which was the magisterial one ;. 
and although the doctor was a Yankee by birth, habit, 
and education, such confidence was reposed in his capacity 

' Westmorelanrl Records, 17772. ' Hist. Col.. N. Y. 



152 HISTORY OF THE 

and integrity, that he was chosen the first justice in the 
fifth district of the new county. His commission, signed 
by Benj. Franklin, tlien President of the Supreme Execu- 
tive Council of Pennsylvania, bears date May 11, 1787. 

In 1779, he marched with the troops under General Sul- 
livan into the Indian country along the upper waters of 
the Susquehanna, and by his cheerfulness and example 
taught the soldiers to endure their hardships and fatigues, 
taking himself an earnest part in that memorable expedi- 
tion which brought such relief to Wyoming and such 
glory to the American arms. 

Nor did Congress, prompted by noble impulses, forget 
his services as acting surgeon in the army, when, in 1838, 
$2,400 was voted to his heirs. 

That his mind, active, keen, and read3^ looked beyond 
the ordinary conceptions of his day, is shown by his pur- 
chased right, in 1791, to dig iron ore and stone coal in 
Pittston, long before the character of coal as a heating 
agent was understood, and the same year that the hunter 
Gunther accidentally discovered "black-stones" on the 
broad. Bear Mountain nine miles from Maucli Chunk. 

These purchases, attracting no other notice than general 
ridicule, were made in Exeter, Plymouth, Pittston, Provi- 
dence, and Wilkes Barre, between 1791-8. The first was 
made July 1, 1791, of Mr. Scot, of Pittston, who, for the 
sum of five shillings, Pennsylvania money, sold "one 
half of any minerals, ore of iron, or other metal which he, 
the said Smith, or his heirs, or assighns, may discover on 
the hilly lands of the said John Scot by tlie red spring." ' 

Old Forge derived its name from Dr. Smith, who, after 
his return from Sullivan's expedition, located himself per- 
manently here on the rocky edge of the Susquehanna, 
beside the sycamore and oak, where first in the valley the 
sound of the trip-hammer reverberated, or mingled with 
the hoarse babblings of its water. The forge was erected 

' Luzerne County Records. 



l.ACKAWAXXA VAI.LEr. 153 

by Dr. Smith and James Sutton in the spi-ing of 1789, for 
converting ore into iron. It stood immediately below the 
falls or rapids in the stream, about two miles above its 
mouth, and not far from the reputed location of the silver 
mine before spoken of. Before the erection of these iron- 
works none existed in Westmoreland except those in New- 
port, operating in 1777. 

"My recollections of Pittston and Old Forge," wrote 
the late Hon. Charles Miner, in a letter to the writer, twelve 
3' ears ago, "are all of the most cheerful character. I 
have, at the old tavern, on the bank of the river above 
the ferry, seen the son of Capt. Dethic Hewit, the gallant 
old fellow, who, in the battle, when told, ' See, Capt. 
Hewit, the left wing has given away, and the Indians are 
upon us ; shall we retreat V answered to his negro drum- 
mer. Skittish Pomp, 'No, I'll see them damned hrst,' and 
fell. His son was at the house, and sang with the spirit 
his father fought — 

" ' So sweetly the horn 

Called me up in the morn,' &c., &c. 

" But to the Forge. 

"The heaps of charcoal and bog ore, half a dozen New 
Jersey firemen at the furnace ! What life ! What clat- 
ter ! And then at the mansion, on the hill, might be seen 
the owner. Dr. Wm. Hooker Smith, now nearly super- 
annuated, Avho, in his day, was the great physician of the 
valley during the war, and if, perchance, the day was 
fine, and his family on the parterre, you might see his 
daugliters, unsurpassed in beauty and grace, whose every 
movement was harmony that Avould add a charm to the 
proudest city mansion." 

The doctor was a plain, practical man, a firm adheivnt 
of the theory of medicine as taught and practiced by his 
sturdy ancestors a century ago. He was an unwavering 
phlebotomist. Armed with huge saddle-bags rattling with 
gallipots and vials and thirsty lance, he sallied forth on 



154 HISTORY OF THE 

horseback over tlie rough country calling for his services^ 
and many were the cures issuing from the unloosed vein. 
No matter what the nature or location of the disease, 
how strong or slight the assailing pain, bleeding promptly 
and largely, with a s} stem of diet, drink, and i-est, was 
enforced on the patient with an earnestness and success 
that gave him a wide-spread reputation as a physician. 

The forge prospered for years — two fires and a single 
trip-hammer manufacturing a considerable amount of iron, 
which was floated down the Susquehanna in Durham 
boats and large canoes. The impure quality and small 
quantity of ore found and wrought into iron, with 
knowledge and machinery alike defective ; the labor and 
expense of smelting the raw material into ready iron in 
less demand down the Susquehanna, where forges and 
furnaces began to blaze ; the natural infirmities of age, as 
well as the rival forge of Slocum's, at Slocum Hollow, all 
ultimately disarmed Old Forge of its fire and trip-ham- 
mer. 

After leaving his forge, he removed up the Susquehan- 
na, near Tunkhannock, where, full of years, honor, and 
usefulness, he died in 1815, among his ft-iends, at the gocd 
old age of 91. 

THE SIGJNAL TREE. 

As the emigrant from Connecticut found himself, after a 
long journey, on one of the peaks of the Moosic Moun- 
tain, five miles northeast from Scranton, overlooking the 
fertile plain of Wyoming, twenty miles aw^ay, he could 
discover, by the naked eye, when the day was clear, 
looming up from the surrounding trees, covering the moun- 
tains northwest of Wyoming, a pine-tree, majestic in its 
height, its trunk shorn of its limbs almost to its very top, 
■ resembling, from the marked umbrel spread of its foliage, 
a great umbrella, with the handle largely disproportioned. 
This is the tree known as the signal tree. Over the deep 
foliage of trees surrounding, this one floats with an air of 



LACKAWANNA VAI-LKY. IT'S 

a monarch, catching, as the sun sinks away in the west, 
the latest glimpse of its rays. " Tiittle's Creek," famous 
for its Pennymite history and local interest, leads its 
sluggish way through Kingston, from which this grand 
pitch-pine is plainly visible. Tradition tells that at the 
time of the battle, an Indian was stationed in the top of 
the tree, so that when the defeat of the ^vhites was an- 
nounced by the louder peals of the war-whoop, he com- 
menced to cut off the limbs of the tree, and as this could 
be seen many miles from every diivctioii, parties of In- 
dians were thus informed to watch the i)aths leading out 
of the valley and prevent the escape of the fugitives. 
This, however, is mere tradition. A more reasonable in- 
terpretation of the matter is this : Some years ago one of 
the knots of this tree was removed, and from the con- 
centric rings or yearly growths indicatt'd by them, the 
lopping of the limbs was dated back to 1762— the first 
}ear a settlement was commenced here by the whites— 
thus showing quite clearly that the tree had been trimmed 
previous to the massacre, and that it had been used by the 
emigrating parties from Connecticut as a guiding tree to 
the Wyoming lands, where a colony, with no roads but 
the warriors' pathway, and but little knowledge of a re- 
liable character of the locality of the new country, crossed 
the frowning mountains, mostly on foot, and made a per- 
manent residence in 1769. 

Evidence of fracture, made by the ax or hatciiet, a 
century ago, upon the limbs, has been so obliterated by 
intervening years, that the indifferent and unskilled ob- 
server looks in vain for the cause of the absent limbs. 

THE WYOMING MASSACKK. 

The summer of 1778, momentous in the history of th(> 
Lackawanna Valley, witnessed either the slaughter, ca])- 
ture, or flight of every white person within its border. 
There is no data to determiiK^ \\n' ••xact population of 



156 III.-TORY OF THE 

the Lackawanna portion of the Wyoming pc ssessions 
in 1774. Westmoreland, embracing all the settlements 
on the Susquehanna from Athens to Wyoming, and from 
Wallenpaupack to the mouth of the Lackawanna, had 
about 2,300 inhabitants at this time. Of this number, 
Wyoming, with its broad productive acres, had a large 
proportion, because of the greater protection of its shelter- 
ing block-houses. Seventy-five or about one hundred 
persons, probably enumerated the whole united popula- 
tion of the Lackawanna Valley at the commencement of 
the American Revolution. These shared in the deliber- 
ations and dangers of their brethren along the Susque- 
hanna. 

Although the people of Connecticut met at Hartford in 
September, 1774, to devise measures of resistance to 
British wrong, her j^oung colony at Wyoming, just formed 
into the town of Westmoreland, absorbed with the Pio- 
A'incial conflict, now interrupted and then resumed, had 
<!one notliiiig in the way of building forts, or preparing 
for the bloodier wrestle for independence, until it liad 
actually begun. At a toAvn meeting, ''legally warned 
and held in Westmoreland, Wilkes Barre district, Aug. 
*24th, 1776," it was unanimously voted that the people 
erect forts in Hanover, Plymouth, Wilkes Barre, and 
Pittston at once, at points deemed most judicious by the 
military committee, "without either fee or reAvard from 
ye town." ^ 

This was done so generally, that before the battle on 
Abraham's Plains, July 3, 1778, there stood eight forts in 
Wyoming Valley, constructed principally of logs. 

On the high bank of the river, nearly opposite Pittston, 
where a large spring of water emerges from the plain, 
there had settled a Tory named Wintermoot, who, after 
clearing sufficient land, erected a rude stockade or fort, 
known as Wintermoof s Fort. Although this simple fact 

' Westmoreland Records. 



LACKAWANNA VAI-LEV. 157 

afforded no evidence of Tory proclivities, its erection at 
this point, at this exciting period, justly aroused the sus- 
picions of the loyal element in the neighborhood, and led 
to the erection of another a mile above Wintermoot's, 
where lived the acknowledged patriotic; families of the 
Hardings and Jenkinses. It stood in tlie narrow defile in 
the mountain nearly opposite CanipbelTs Ledge, a mile 
above the mouth of the Lackawanna. 

To meet some of the demands of war, Congress called 
upon Connecticut, in August, 1776, to raise two companies 
of eighty-four men each for the defense of Westmoreland. 
Wyoming promptly furnished them. No sooner, however, 
was the number complete, than Congress, itself in jeop- 
ardy, and yet unremitting in its efforts to raise troops, 
saw with concern the critical and gieyter needs of the 
country elsewhere. The American army, of about 14.000 
men, under General Washington, had been driven from 
Long Island and New York by the British army, iiumber- 
ing 25,000. Forts Washington and Lee, on the Hud- 
son, had fallen. Witli only 3,000 brave men. General 
Washington retreated to Newark, and was driven from 
camp to camp with his half-fed, ill-clothed, yet unswerv- 
ing soldiers, crossing the Delaware as the victorious 
British approached Philadelphia. At this dark moment 
in the nation's history. Congress, which had hastily ad- 
journed the same day from Philadelphia to Baltimore, 
hardly appreciating the perils menacing Wyoming, or- 
dered the two companies raised for its defense to join 
the commander-in-chief ^'"with all possible expedition.^^ 
This being done, Wyoming was left comparatively de- 
fenseless. 

Events of vast importance began to develop in many 
parts of the country, and excite apprehension in the mind 
of the patriot. Burgoyne, with victorious trooyjs, was 
sweeping down from the Canadian frontier, accompanied 
by his red and white skinned auxiliaries, ready for pillage 
or revenge. Ticonderoga had fallen into his hands, and 



158 HISTORY OF THE 

while General Howe was crowding up vi(;tory after vic- 
tory in New York and New Jersey, the Indians living 
along the upper branches of the Susquehanna and Che- 
nango, restless and joyous with the hope held, out by 
Brant and Butler of regaining their lost Wyoming, be- 
came unanimous and sanguinary allies. Parties of them 
were seen, here and there, emerging from the mountain 
forest into the valley, shedding no blood, destroying no 
property, but securing a captive at every possible oppor- 
tunity. The whole settlement saw and felt the coming 
danger. Scouting parties of bold, experienced woodmen, 
were sent out daily from the valley to watch the three 
great war-paths radiating from it, while drillings or train- 
ings were held every fourteen daj^s, when the old and 
young, the feeble and the strong, drilled side by side in 
tlieir country's service ; expecting every bark of the 
watch-dog, or click of the rifle, to give note of the 
^ipproach of the exasperated bands. 

The colony, now (1778) nine years old, liad, out of its total 
])opulation of about 2.000 persons, 168 in the main army 
under General Washington, Avlien tlie meditated attack 
on Wyoming came to the knowledge of the inliabitants. 
A large body of Indians and Tories had assem])led at 
Niagara and at Tioga for this purpose ; the Indians being 
under the command of the famous chief of mixed blood, 
named Brant, or Gl-en-gioahtoh.' The time of attack was 
]>i'obably suggested by the Tories expelled from AV3^oming, 
M'ishing for the bloodiest revenge upon the settlement, 
known to be almost without soldiers or tire-arms. 

From the lower Susquehanna, the Delaware, the far-off 
Lackawaxen, from the few low wigwams serving the wild 
men o\\ i\u- Lackawanna, the Indians were summoned by 
the Great Chieftain to Oh-na-gua-ga, to join the enter- 
prise, while tlie Tories throughout Westmoreland simul- 
taneously repaii'ed to the enemy. 

' " He who goes in the smoke." — Col. Stone. 



LACKAWANNA VAULKY. 159 

Early in the spring of 1778, Conuicss had heen apprised 
Ty General Schuyler of the threatened attack, but so 
engaged was this body in this all-absorbing struggle for 
national existence, that nothing was, or could be done for 
the safety of Wyoming until March 16, 1778, when it was 
resolved "that one full conipan}' of foot be raised" here 
for its defense. This really furnished no assistance, as 
the men were compelled "to find their arms, accoutre- 
ments, and blankets" from the exhausted resources of 
the interior. 

Congress has been censured by the historian in no flat- 
tering terms, for not recalling to Wyoming the absent 
soldiers under Captains Durkee and Ransom ; but it must 
be remembered that the remnant of Washington's army 
was i-etreatiiig before the superior and exulting forces of 
the British, and had not its exhausted strength been 
invigorated sufficiently by re-cnfoi-ceraents to clieck and 
drive l)ack the invaders, it is impossible to estimate the 
consequences to the countiy to-da}'. Independence would 
liave been ivtarded, and possibly postponed forever. 

In May, 1778, the first life was taken in Westmoreland, 
near Tunkhannock, by the Indians, who each day became 
moi'e defiant and numerous. A day or two afterward, a 
scouting party of six persons were fired upon, a few miles 
farther down the river, by a body of savages lurking 
along the war-path ; two whites were wounded, and one 
fatally, when, springing into their canoe, they escaped 
down the Susquehanna, Alarm spi-ead throughout the 
entire settlement. Persons living along tlie Lackawanna 
at Capoose, apparently remote from danger reaching even 
the outer towns, either deserted their homes and sought 
protection in the forts, or fled to the parent State for 
greater security. The terror of the inhabitants, already 
wrought up to a fearful pitch, was still increased by an 
event simple in its character, yet tragic in its meaning. 

"Two Indians, formerly residents of Wyoming, and 
acquainted with the pe()])le, came down with their sipiaws 



160 HISTORY or THE 

on a visit, professing warm friendship; but suspicions 
existed that they were spies, and directions were given 
that they should be carefully watched. An old compan- 
ion of one of them, with more than Indian cunning, pi'o- 
fessing his attachment to the natives, gave his visitor 
drink after drink of his favorite rum, when in the con- 
fidence and the fullness of his maudlin heart, he avowed 
that his people were prepared to cut off the settlement ;, 
the attack to be made soon, and that they had comedown 
to see and report how things were. The squaws were 
dismissed, but the two Indians were arrested and confin(^d 
in Forty Fort." ^ 

Men heard this intelligence with lips compressed and 
determined, and at once prepared to receive those with 
whom they were so soon to converse from the throyt 
of the musket. Every instrument of death was examined 
and fitted for immediate use. Guns were repaired and 
fitted with new fiints, bayonets were sharpened, ballets 
molded, powder made and distributed, and every man 
and boy able to shoulder a musket, fell into the ranks of 
a new militia company formed by Captain Dethic Ilewit, 
or joined the daily train-bands, expecting the latest mes- 
senger to herald the approach of the invaders. Two de- 
serters from the British army, one by the name of Pike, 
from Canada, and the other a sergeant named Boyd, from 
Boston, Miner relates, " were particularly useful in train- 
ing the militia." 

While these preparations were being made along the 
excited valley, beyond succor offered by Connecticut, 
and withheld by Pennsylvania, the Indians, Tories, and 
British, darkened the waters of the Susquehanna at 
Ta-hi-o-ga with a fleet of rafts, river-boats, and canoes,, 
preparatory to a descent upon the " Large Plains." 

In all the wide expanse of territory, within the limits 
of Westmoreland — about seventy miles square — there was 

' Minei's History. 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 161 

no larger field-piece than the old flint musket, with the 
exception of a single cannon at the Wilkes Barre Fort. 
This was a four-pounder, of no use, as no suitable lialls 
were in the settlement, and had been brought into the 
colony merely for an alarm-gun in the Yankee and Pt n- 
nymite war. The force of the Americans, without appio- 
priate arms, discipline, or strength, amounted to about 
four hundred persons, to resist the attack of nearly four 
times their number. 

The enemy, numbering about four hundred British 
provincials, six or seven hundred Seneca and Mohawk 
Indians, in paint and war-costume, familiar with every 
part of Wyoming, a large body of Tories gathered from 
afar, commanded by ColonelJohn Butler, a British officer, 
and accompanied by the notorious Brant, an Iroquois 
chief, left their rendezvous on Tioga River, descended 
the Susquehanna below the mouth of Bowman's Creek, 
near Tunkhannock, about twenty miles above the head 
of the Valley of Wyoming, where they landed on the 
west bank of the river. Here, in a deep, sharp curve 
in the river, they moored their boats, marching across a 
rugged spur of the mountain, thus shortening the distance 
a number of miles. On the 30th of June, just at the edge 
of the evening, they arrived on the western mountain, a 
little distance above the Tory fort of Wintermoot's. This 
fort, standing about one mile below Fort Jenkins, prob- 
ably owed its inception to some ulterior design of the 
British and Tories, whom it served so well. From Fort 
Jenkins, eight persons having neither notice nor suspicion 
of the proximity of the enemy, had gone up the valley 
into Exeter to work upon their farms, a little distance 
from the fort, taking with them their trusty and ever- 
attending weapons of defense, with their agricultural 
utensils. WHiile unsuspectingly engaged at their work, 
which they were about closing for the day, they were 
surrounded by a portion of the invading army, with a 
view of making them prisoners, so that the British But- 



162 HISTORY OF THE 

ler might learn the actual state and strength of the Wyo- 
ming people. 

Surprised but not intimidated by the fearful odds 
against them, they chose to die by the bullet rather than 
risk the hatchet or the torturing scalping knife brandished 
before them. They fought for a short time, killing five 
of the enemy, three Tories and two Indians, when four 
of their own number fell, and were hacked into shreds 
by the exasperated savages ; three were taken alive, 
while a single boy leaped into the river, and, aided by 
the gray twilight of evening, was enabled to escape, amid 
a hundred pursuing bullets. One of the slain was a son 
of the barbarous Queen Esther, who accompanied the 
expedition Avith her tribe, and whose cruelties at the 
bloody rock, inspired with greater atrocity from the recent 
loss of her offspring, forever connects her name with 
infamy. 

Two Indians who were watching the mutilated remains 
of the dead, for the purpose of killing or capturing the 
friends who might seek the bodies at night, were shot by 
Zebulon Marcy, from the Lackawanna side of the river. 
For several years, Mr. Marcy was hunted and watched by 
a brother of one of the Indians swearing that he would 
have revenge.^ Although Marcy' s house was the onl}^ 
one left standing along the Lackawanna in 1778, from 
some unexplained Indian freak, he was never harmed by 
them . 

Foit Jenkins, thus bereft of its protectors, capitulated 
the same evening to Captain Caldwell, while the united 
forces of Butler and Brant bivouacked at the friendly 
Tory quarters of Fort Wintermoot. No sooner did the 
dull report of musketry, echoing from under Campbell's 
Ledge down the valley, denote the presence of the foe, 
than the real critical position of the settlement at the 
mercy of the coming wave, was appreciated in all its 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 163 

sternness. Men not accustomed to sconr the woods for 
miles in the vicinity of their liomes to discover Indian 
trails, and give warning to their neighbors and families of 
suspicious approach or retreat, would have shrunk from 
the fierce-coming struggle with dismay ; but these self- 
reliant men left the scythe in the swath, the plow in the 
furrow, and, gathering up the weak and weeping ones, 
hurried them to Forty Fort. This fort stood on the west 
bank of the river, below Monockonock Island, and three 
miles above Wyoming Fort, where, in a short time, were 
collected the principal forces of Wyoming Valley, con- 
sisting of three hundred and sixty-eight men, very indif- 
ferently armed and equipped. On the Lackawanna side 
of the river, at Pittston, nearly opposite Wintermoot' s, 
Fort Brown had been erected ; this was garrisoned by 
the settlers from the lower portion of the Lackawanna 
and Pittston, numbering about forty men, under the com- 
mand of Captain Blancliard. Another company was at 
(Jiipoose. 

By the aid of spies, full of stratagem and daring, co:i- 
tinnally reconnoitering the unharvested plains upon 
either side of the river, Col. Jolin Butler learned how 
completely at his mercy was the entire valley, unless re- 
enforcements lioped for by the Connecticut jieople, and 
expected from the main army, should arrive and drive 
back his mongrel horde. Already Avere the two upper 
forts in his possession, with all the canoes and means of 
crossing the river, but not wishing to bring his Indians 
into the excitement of a general battle, where, becoming 
infuriated and ungovernable alter a victory, scenes of 
torture and bloodshed might be enacted too revolting to 
witness, and yet too general and wide-spread to check, he 
sent one of the prisoners taken in Exeter to Col. Zebulon 
Butler, on the morning of the day of battle, accompanied 
by a Tory and an Indian, demanding the immediate sur- 
render, not only of the fort he commanded, but of all 
others in the valley, with all the public jiroperty, as well 



164 HISTORY OF THK 

as the militia coiripany of C'apt. Hewit, as prisoners of 
war. It can be said to his credit that lie also suggested 
to the commander of Forty Fort the propriety of destroy- 
ing all intoxicating drinJcs, provided these considerat(.' 
terms were rejected; "for," said the British Butlei-. 
"drunken savages can't be controlled." The acceptance 
of these apparently exacting, but really liberal terms, was 
urged by some, in hopes that the tide of slaughter might 
be stayed; the majority opposed it, and the messengt r 
was sent away with this decision. 

A council of war was immediately held in the foit. 
While a few hoped that the absent military companies 
would arrive, and furnish re-enforcements able to offer 
battle and expel the enemy from AVyoming, if a few days 
intervened ; others more rash and impulsive replied that 
the force concentrated in the fort could march out upon 
the plains, where the enemy Avere encamped, and, being 
familiar with the ground, could surprise and possibly 
capture them ; that many of their homes already lit by 
the torch, their crops destroyed — that the murder of the 
Hardings at Fort Jenkins was but the prelude to the 
drama about to redden Wyoming, unless interrupted by 
prompt offensive measures, and that tJiey were anxious 
and determined to tight. Unfortunately this counsel pre- 
vailed. 

With the colonial development in Westmoreland had 
grown the love of rum} So fixed, so general, in fact, had 
become this pernicious and unmanning habit — so essential 
was whisky regarded in its sanative and conunercial 
aspect, that one of the first buildings of a public character 
erected in the colony, after a stockade or fort, was a still 
or brew house. The almost universal custom of drinking 
prevailed at this time to an alarming extent, not only 
throughout the Lackawanna and Wyoming settlements, 
but along the whole frontii^r ol upper Pennsylvania. 

' In 1783 the Pennsylvania troops stationed at Wyoming were supplied with "2^ 
Gill of Liquor" to one pound of bread. — Pennsylvania Arcliives, 1783, p. 118. 



I.ACKAWAXXA VALLKY. 165 

"It being known that among tlie stoivs there was a 
quantity of whisky, Col. Butler desired it might be de- 
stroyed, for he feared if the Indians became intoxicated he 
could not restrain them. The barrels were rolled to the 
bank, the heads knocked in, and the liquor emptied into 
the river.'" ^ 

The venerable and yet intelligent Mrs. Deborah Bedford, 
one of the last survivors of the W3'oming massacre, in- 
formed the writer in 1857 tliat, ''in accordance with the 
request of Col. Butler, all the liquor in the fort was rolled 
out and emptied into the Susquehanna, with the excep- 
tion of a single barrel of whisk}-, spared for medicinal 
purposes. The head of this was knocked in during the 
council of war;'' and as "the debates are said to have 
been conducted with much warmth and animation,"^ it 
is more than possible that the inspiring influence of this 
barrel contributed, to a certain extent, toward the result 
of the deliberations. '' A liaicl fight was expected up the 
valley," continued the reliable lady, from whose young, 
anxious eye nothing escaped in the fort, "and as the 
drum and flf(:» struck up an animating air, while the 
soldiers marched out the fort one by one, a gourd-shell, 
floating in the inviting beverage, was filled, and passed to 
each comrade, and drank." 

Motives, alike natural and delicate, have hitherto suj)- 
pressed evidence showing that if some of the soldiers, 
brave as they might have been, and were, had not "taken 
a little too much," ^ their ideas of their own strength were 
singularly confused and exalted. However pleasant it 
might be to pass by this great error of the times — an error 
which rendered certain and merciless the fate of AVyoming 
— with the same studied silence and charity observed by 
others, justice to the living, uttering no censure, and to 
the dead, needino; no defense, demands a [niiliful record. 



Miner's History of Wyoming, p. T.Vl. 
'Chapman's History of Wyoming, p. 122. = Peclvs Wyoming, pp. 364- 



166 HISTORY OF THE 

Col. George Dorraiice, an officer whose prudent counsels 
to remain in the fort were disregarded, was taunted with 
cowardice because of his counter-advice against this death- 
march up the valley. 

The forces of Brant and Col. John Butler were at 
Wintermoot' s Fort, opposite Pittston. To silently reach 
this point, and, protected by the large pine-trees shelter- 
ing the plain, spring on the enemy unawares, was the 
plan finally adopted. The little band, on the afternoon 
of the 3d of July, numbering about 350 of the sturdiest 
remaining settlers, under the command of Colonel Zebulon 
Butler, left the fort amid the prayers of dear and devoted 
kindred. Old men, whose hands were tremulous and 
unsteady ; young ones, unskilled in years — marched 
side by side to the place of conflict. So great the emer- 
gency at this time, so much to be won or lost by the 
coming battle, that none remained in the fort save women 
and children. Rapidly up along the west bank of the 
river, Col. Z. Butler cautiously led his forces within half 
a mile of Wintermoot' s. Here he halted a few minutes, 
and sent forward two volunteers to reconnoiter the position 
and strength of the enemy ; these were fired upon by the 
opposing scouts, who, like the main body of the British, 
were not only apprised by Indian runners of the depait- 
ure of the Yankees from Forty Fort, but were prepared 
to give them a murderous welcome. As the Americans 
approached the British soldiers and painted savages, 
Wintermoot' s Fort, which had served its intended mis- 
chievous purpose, was set on fire by the Tories for reasons 
unknown. The British colonel promptl}^ formed liis 
forces into line of battle ; the Provincials and Tories bt-ing 
placed in front toward the river, while the morass at the 
right concealed vast numbers of the dusky warriors under 
Brant and the drunken Queen. 

Among the tall pines unmelted from the plain, Colonel 
Zebulon Butler placed his men so as better to resist the 
first attack of the enemy, preparing to begin the strife. 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 167 

Colonels Butler and Dormnce each urged the soldiers to 
meet the first shock with firmness, as their own lives and 
homes depended on the issue. Hardly had the words 
laiig along the line, before the bullets of the enemy, pour- 
ing in from a thousand muskets, began to thin the ranks 
of the Connecticut party. 

" About four in the afternoon the battle began ; Col. Z. 
Butler ordered his men to fire, and at each discharge to 
advance a step. Along the whole line the discharges 
were rapid and steady. It was evident, on the more open 
ground the Yankees were doing most execution. As our 
men advanced, pouring in their platoon fires with great 
vivacity, the British line gave way, in spite of all their 
officers' efforts to prevent it. The Indian flanking party 
on our right, kept up from their liiding-places a galling 
tire. Lieut. Daniel Gore received a ball through the 
left arm. 'Captain Durkee,' said he, 'look sharp for the 
Indians in those bushes.' Captain D. stepped to the 
bank to look, prepai'atory to making a charge and dis- 
hjdging them, when he fell. On the British Butler's right, 
liis Indian warriors were sharply engaged. They seemed 
to be divided into six bands, for a yell would be raised at 
one end of the line, taken up, and carried through, six 
distinct bodies appearing at each time to repeat the cry. 
As the battle waxed warmer, that fearful yell was renewed 
again and again, with more and more spirit. It appeared 
to be at once their animating shout, and their signal of 
communication. As several fell near Col. Dorrance, one 
of his men gave way ; ' Stand up to your work, sir,' said 
he, firmly but coolly, and the soldier resumed his place. 

"For half an hour a hot fire had been given and sus- 
tained, when the vastly superior numbers of the enemy 
began to develop its power. The Indians had thrown into 
the swamp a large force, which now completely outflanked 
our left. It was impossible it should be otherwise i that 
wing was thrown into confusion. Col. Dennison gave 
orders that the company of Whittlesey should wheel back. 



168 HISTORY OF THE 

SO as to form an angle with the main line, and thus pre- 
sent his front instead of flank, to the enem}-. The diffi- 
culty of performing evolutions, by the bravest militia, oir 
the field, under a hot fire, is well known. On the attempt 
the savages rushed in with horrid yells. Some had mis- 
taken the order to fall l)ack^ as one to retreat^ and that 
word, that fatal word, ran along the line. Utter confu- 
sion now prevailed on the I'eft. Seeing the disorder, and 
his own men beginning to give way, Col. Z. Butler threw 
himself between the fires of the opposing ranks, and rode 
up and down the line in the most reckless exposure. 

" 'Don't leave me, my children, and the victory is 
ours,' But it was too late." ' 

When it was seen that defeat had come, the confusion 
became general. Some fought bravely in the hopeless 
conflict, and fell upon the battle-ground bayonet-pierced ; 
others fled in wild disorder down the valley toward 
Forty Fort or Wilkes Barre without their guns, pursued 
by Indians whose belts were soon reeking with warm 
scalps. 

" A portion of the Indians' flanking party pushed for- 
ward in the rear of the Connecticut line, to cut ofi" retreat 
from Forty Fort, and then pressed the retreating army 
toward the river. Monockasy Island aff'ording the only 
hope of crossing, the stream of flight flowed in that direc- 
tion through fields of grain." ^ The Tories, more vindic- 
tive and ferocious if possible than the red-men, hastened 
after the fugitives. 

Mr. Carey and Judge Hollenback were standing side 
by side when the victorious forces of the enemy appeared 
in view ; Carey ran with the speed of a deer, while 
Hollenback, throwing away his gun and stripping to the 
waist, followed him toward Wilkes Barre. Being thus 
divested of his clothing he was enabled to leave his 
weaker comrade in the rear, swam the river in safety, and 

' Miner. ' Ibid. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 169 

was the first to tell the tale of defeat to the village of 
Wilkes Barre, then consisting of twenty-three houses. 
Carey fled to the I'iver, where, under its deep-worn bank 
he found shelter, as he sank too exhausted to swim, still 
retaining his musket. He heard the quick footsteps of 
the fugitives, and as they were plunging in the water to 
reach Pittston Fort, saw the swift-sent tomahawk over- 
take many a neighbor sti'uggling in the river in vain. 
Upon the bank below him, three soldiers were clubbed to 
death by the Tories. His own musket he grasped still 
more firmly, determined to sell his life as dearly as possi- 
ble, if require! ; escaping detection, he swam the river at 
night and escaped. 



^^e^:^^^fe "s^"' 








MONOOAST ISLAND. FROM THE EAST BANK OP THE SL'SQITEHANNA. 

Of the cruelties practiced ]\y the Tories and Indians 
after the battle, one instance will suffice to illustrate. A 
little below the battle-ground there lay, and still lies, in 
the divided waters of the Susquehanna, an island green 
with Avillows and wild grass, called "Monockonock 
Island." As the path down the valley swarmed with 
warriors, few of the fleeing settlers pursued it, but 
scattered through the fields. Others fled to this island 
for refuge. This was perceived by the Tories, ruthless in 
pursuit, who reaching the island deliberately wiped their 
guns dry to finish the murderous drama. " One of them, 
with his loaded gun, soon passed close by one of these 
men who lay concealed from his view, and was immedi- 
ately recognized by him to be the brother of his com- 



170 



HISTORY or THE 



panion who was concealed near him, but who being a 
Tory, had joined the enemy. He passed slowly along, 
carefully examining every covert, and directly perceived 
his brother in his place of concealment. He suddenly 
stopped and said, ' So it is you, is it V His brother, finding 
that he was discovered, immediately came forward a few 
steps, and falling on his knees, begged him to spare his life, 
promising him to live with him ajid serve him, and even 
to be his slave as long as he lived, if he would only spare 

his life. ' All this is 
mighty good,'' re- 
plied the savage- 
hearted brother of 
the supplicating man, 
' hut you are a d — d, 
reheV and deliber- 
ately presenting his 
rifie, shot him dead 
on the spot."^ The 
name of the fratricide 
Tory was John Pen- 
cil, and the miserable 
wretch, shunned by 
the Indians whom he accompanied to Canada, was after- 
ward killed and devoured in the Canadian forest by 
wolves.^ Such was the spirit of the Wyoming massacre, 
and such was the doom of the fratricide. 

After the pursuit of the fugitives had ceased, scenes of 
torture began. Opposite the mouth of the Lackawanna, 
and ahnost under the shadows of "Campbell's Ledge," 
a band of Indians, wild with exultation, had gathered their 
prisoners in a circle, stripped of their clothing, and with 
sharpened spears drove them into the flames of a large 
fire, amidst their agonizing cries and the yells of the infuri- 
ated savages. On the battle-ground, was cleft each seal] >• 




SLOODT KOCK. 



Chapman's History, pp. 12-78. * See Dr. Peck's Wyoming, pp. .37-15. 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 171 

of the dying and the dead, before tlie bloody work was 
carried to "Bloody Rock." ''This celebrated rock is 
situated east of a direct line Ix.'tween the monument and 
the site of Fort Wintermoot, on tlie brow^ of the high 
steep bank which is supposed to have been tli(^ ancient 
bank of the river. The rock- is a bowlder, and it is a 
sort of conglomerate, principally composed of quartz."* 
It formerly rose some two feet above the earth but 
the constant attrition of the frequent visitor desir- 
ing a fragment of the interesting bowlder to carry 
away as a relic, has scalped or shorn it almost even 
with the ground. Around the rock, standing distinctly 
out on the plain, othervdse smooth and rockless, some 
eighteen of the prisoners who had been taken under 
the solemn promise of quarter, were collected and sur- 
rounded by a ring of warriors under the command of 
Queen Esther. In the battle she had led her column with 
more than Indian bravery, and now around the fatal ring 
was she to avenge the loss of her first-born, slain in the 
("ucounter with the settlers, at tlie head of the valley, a 
day or two before. Swinging the war-club or the merci- 
less hatchet, she walked around the dusky ring, and, as 
suited her whim, dashed out the brains of the unresisting 
prisoners. Two only escaped by superhuman efforts. The 
bodies of fourteen oi- fifteen were afterward found around 
this rock, scalped and shockingly mangled. Nine more 
were found in a similar circle some distance above.- 
About 160 of the Connecticut people perished in the 
battle and massacre ; 140 escaped. The surviving settlers 
tied toward the Delaware. Before them frowned the 
foodless forest, since known as the " Shades of Death ;" 
behind, save the low wail of the scattered fugitives, 
clambering up the mountain side by the light of tlieii' burn- 
ing homes, all was silence and desolation.' The forest- 
dwellers had cruelly revenged their wrongs ; the Tory by 

' P.eU'8 Wyommg, p. 284. ' Miner 



172 HISTORY OF THE 

liis c'liil) and bayoiu t liad surpassed the wild man in fero- 
cious instinct — tlie British soldier, led hither by command, 
turned from the unsoldier-like scenes of the day and night 
with aversion, and all sank exhausted on the grounds of 
the old Indian empire for repose. 

The Pittston forts surrendered to Colonel J. Butler 
early on the morning of the fourth, upon the following 
terms : — 

" Articles of Capitulation for three Forts at Lacuwan- 
ack, 4th July, 1778. Art. 1st.— That the different Com- 
manders of the said Forts do immediately deliver them 
np, with all the arms, ammunition, and stores, in the said 
forts." "2d. — Major Butler promises that the lives of 
the men, women, and children be preserved intire," ^ 

These terms were honorably complied with, and not a 
person in Pittston was molested by the Indians ; all the 
prisoners in the foi-ts were marked with black war-paiiit, 
which exempted them from immediate harm. Forty Foit 
was surrendered the same day to Major John Butlei'. 

Five da3'S after the battle. Colonel Butler i-etired fi'om 
Wyoming with his forces, so elated with his success tiiat 
he reported to his government that he had "taken 227 
scalps and only five prisoners," "taken eight palisades, 
(six) forts, and burned about orie tlioiisand dwelUng 
houses^ all their mills, etc.," having, "on our side one 
Indian, two Rangers killed, and eight prisoners wounded." 
" We have also killed and drove off about one thousand 
head of horned cattle, and sheep and swine in great num- 
bers." - 

After Butler had gone noithward, a party of rangers 
and Indians whom he had sent, went "to the Delaware 
to destroy a small settlement there, and to bring off pris- 
oners." ^ These, after remaining a few days at W^yoming 
for scalps and plunder, visited the Lackawanna Valley 



' Copied from Her Majesty's State Paper Doc. in London. Miner. 
"See Butler's Report. Peck's Wyoming, pp. 52-6. ' Ibid. 



LACKAWANNA VAI.LKT. 173 

on theii* way to the Paupack and Delaware. Wyoming, 
with the exception of a few houses around Wilkes Barre 
fort, was depopulated, and presented one dark picture 
of conflagration and waste. Up the Lackawanna, every 
house and barn, Avith the single exception of Marcy's, 
was burned to the ground, and every family that could 
escape fled on foot toward Stroudsburg for safety. 

Six miles up the Lackawanna, a small stream called 
Key's or Kieser's Creek, emerges from a long line of wil- 
lows, where the savages overtook and shot and scalped 
two men by the name of Leach and St. John, who were 
removing their families with ox-teams from the smoking 
valley below. "One of them," says Miner, "had a 
child in his arms, which, with strange inconsistency, the 
Indian took up and handed to the mother, all covered 
with the father's blood. Leaving the women in the wagon 
unlnii't, they took the scalps of their husbands, and de- 
parted." At Capoose, Mr. Hickman, attending to his 
crops, unconscious of danger so near, was murdered by 
the same band, as were his wife and child. His log cabin 
was burned to the ground. 

Isaac Tripp, a Mr. Hocksey and Keys were captured 
and cari-ied fi-om the Capoose into the forest of Abingtou 
at this time. Tripp, who had hitherto, in his intercourse 
with the Indians, shown them kindness, was painted and 
released, while his two companions were led out of the 
path, tomahawked, and left unburied in the woods near 
Clark's Green. 

No white person was left alive in the entire valley in 
1778, after the massacre, nor did any settlers venture to 
return to the Susquehanna or the Lackawanna to bury 
the dead or gather the crops, until some three months 
afterward. 

In September, Colonel Hartle}^ was sent up into the 
Indian country to chastise them, while the grain was being 
secured. He arrived at Wyalusing, September 28, with 
his men worn down, and his "Whiskey and Flour all 



174 



HISTOKY OF THK 



goiie/'^ "111 lonely woods and groves we found the 
Haunts and Lurking Places of the Savage Murderers who 
had desolated our Frontier. We saw the Huts where 
they had dressed and dried the scalps of the helpless 
women & Children who had fell in their hands. "" 

In October, " Three persons w^ere killed near Wyoming, 
and another was sent in with his life, scalped to his Eye- 
brows almost."' 

No single massacre in America during the Revolution, 
awakened throughout the whole land a sensation so uni- 
versal and profound as did this. General Washington, 
jiained by the sanguinary blow struck at Wyoming, or- 
dered General Sullivan, in 1779, to visit and lay waste 
the Indian country along the northwestern frontier, from 
whence much of its force had come. The expedition, 
however, being retarded for a time from various causes, 
and the numerous massacres being still unavenged, a 
proposition was made to the authorities of Pennsylvania, 
April, 1779, by William McClay, to hunt the Indians out 
of the Lackawanna and Wyoming valleys with horses 
and dogs. He says "that a single troop of Light Horse 
attended by dogs, would destroy more Indians than five 
thousand men stationed in forts along the Frontiers."* 
Tills system of warfare, liowever, was never adopted 
here. 

Gen. Sullivan proceeded to the very heart of the Indian 
empire around the lakes in July, 1779, and after burning 
eigliteen of their villages,^ destroying a large number of 
warriors, and a vast quantity of corn, peach orchards, &c., 
returned to Wyoming, October 7, with the loss of only 
forty men. 

"The army marched to Lackawanna, distant 9 miles 
from Wyoming. (Wilkes Barre.) This place contains 
two hundred acres of excellent level land, and beautifully 



' Pa. Arch., 1778, p. 5. Ibid. ' Ibid., p. 16. 

* Ibid., 1779, p. :',57. 'See Pennsylvania Archives, 1779, p. 709. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 175 

situated, having a fine creek bordering on the east side of 
the river in front, and a large mountain in tlie rear, which 
forms this pkice a triangular form/' ^ 

The following account of an extraordinary adventure 
and escape of a messenger, coming from Sullivan' s camp 
to Easton, illustrates how little pleasure there was in 
traveling then, even in the rear of his army : — 

Sunday Morning. 

Sullivan's Stores, Y' July, 1779. 

■s^ 

This will inform you of the most singular event that 
perhaps you ever met with. — One of my Expresses, (Viz*,) 
James Cook on his return from Wejoming this day, about 
the middle of the afternoon, in the Swamp was fired upon 
by the Indians & Tories — he supposes between Thirty & 
Fifty Shot. One Shot Avent thro' his Canteen, one thro' 
his Saddle, one thro' his Hunting Shirt, one was shot into 
liis Horse. Two Indians or Tories being yet before him, 
both discharged their Pieces at him, threw down their 
Firelocks with a determination to Tomahawk him — ad- 
vanced within Eight Yards of him, at which Time he, 
with a Bravery peculiar to liimself, fired upon them, 
killed one of them on the spot i{nd wounded the other, 
notwithstanding he threw his Tomahawk at the Express, 
missed him, but cut the Horse very deep upon the 
Shoulder. He got hold of Cook, tliought to get him from 
his Horse, tore his Shirt, which is stained much with the 
Indian's Blood; the Horse being fretted by his Wound 
raised upon his hind Feet, Tiampled the Indian or Torie 
under liim, who roared terribly, at which time Cook got 
•clear ; the other Indians on seeing him get off, raised the 
Whoop as if all Hell was broke loose. He supposes he 
rode the Horse afterwards near four Miles, but by the 
loss of Blood began to Staggei-, when he alighted, took 

' Bftport of Geo. Grant, Serg. Maj. to ye 3d Reg. of N. J., uuder M;ij. Sullivan, 
in 1779. 



176 HlhTORT OF THE 

off his Saddle & Letters, ran about a Mile on foot, where 
he fortunately found a stray Continental Horse, which he 
mounted & rode to this Place. 

It is easy to account for his getting the Horse as there 
are numbers of them astray about the Swamp. M' Cook's 
Firelock was loaded with a Bullet & Nine Buck shot, & 
the Indians being close together when he tired is the 
reason why the one might be killed and the other 
Wounded. 

From a Perfect knowledge of the mans Sobriety, In- 
tegrity and Soldierism, no part of this need be doubted. 
I am sir, 

Your most ob* Humble serv\ 
(Copy.) ALEX'R PATTERSON. 

Directed, — To His Excellency Joseph Reed, Esq', Present. 

Smarting under the chastisement given by General 
Sullivan, bands of Indians, which had returned, dexterous 
and wary, prowled around the cabin of the valley hus- 
bandman, and their tomahawks sti uck alike the laborer 
in the field and the child in the cradle ; and yet, in spite 
of such adverse danger, besetting every hour with blighted 
hopes and ruined prospects, the settlement began to till 
up with many of the former returning occupants. 

In the fall of 1778, the region of Capoose, depopulated 
so completely of every white inhabitant, began to receive 
back some of the more resolute of its former denizens. A 
small portion of the fall crop, escaping destruction by mere 
accident or caprice, was thus secured, which, by the aid 
of bear-meat and venison, easily obtained, as every 
pioneer was a Imnter, enabled them to pass through the 
winter with comparative comfort, unmolested by Tories 
or Indians. In March, however, 1779, the last predatory 
band, hoping for conquest, yet rejoicing in the ruin they 
had wrought, after attacking Wilkes Barre in vain, turned 
up the old Lackawanna to the settlement at Capoose. 
Isaac Tripp was shot in his own house on the fiats, and 



LACKAWANNA V ALLEY. 177 

three men, named Jones, Avery, and Lyons, were carried 
away in the forest, and never heard of afterward. 

GENERAL HISTORY RESUMED. 

Instead of the repose hoped for by the inhabitants of 
Wyoming at the close of the American Revolution, the 
temporarily suspended animosities between Pennsylvania 
and Connecticut, gathering strength by the intervention 
of the Great War, broke out afresh with all the venom 
and violence begotten by a dispute involving every im- 
pulse of passion and every consideration of selfishness. 

Connecticut, through its General Assembly, "holden at 
Hartford, Oct. 9, 1783, asserted its undoubted and exclu- 
sive right of jurisdiction & Pre-emption to all the Lands 
lying West of the Western limits of the State of Penn- 
sylvania, & East of the Mississippi River, and extending 
throngoiit from the Latitude 41° to Latitude 42° 2 north, 
by virtue of the Charter granted by King Charles the 
second to the late Colony of Connecticut bearing date the 
25 day of April, A. D. 1662," ' while it relinquished all 
claim to Wyoming after the unexpected decision of the 
Commissioners at Trenton. 

Soon after the promulgation of the Trenton Decree, 
"two boxes of musket cartridges, and two hundred rilie- 
fiints" were ordered to Wyoming with Northampton 
militia, to look after persons not readily acquiescing in a 
decision known to be adverse to every principle of com- 
mon, sense and equity. Because the inhabitants refused 
to be ground into ashes unmurmuringly, they were re- 
ported "wrangling" and full of a - Letegious Spirit."' 

Toward the Lackawanna people, more defenseless and 
exposed, because fewer in number, proceedings were in- 
stituted by the Pennymites more tyrannical and oppress- 

> See PenQsylvania Archives, 1783, p. 116. ' Ibid., pp. 47-9. 



178 HISTORY OF THE 

ive than elsewhere, simply from the fact that this weak- 
ness could offer no resistance. Families were turned 
forcibly out of their houses, regardless of age or sex ; 
the sick and the feeble, the widow and the orphan, were 
alike thrust rudely from their sheltering homes, while 
fields of grain, and all personal property, were stolen or 
destroyed by a band of men armed with guns and clubs, 
in the interest of the Pennsylvania land-jobbers.^ 

The decision of the Trenton court, looked upon as a 
simple question of jurisdiction only, without affecting the 
rlgJit of soil, was accepted in good faith by the people 
generally. " We care not," said they in an address to 
the General Assembly, "under what State we live in, if 
we live protected and happy." 

The land-jobbers, in their passion for self-aggrandize- 
ment and emolument, not content to allow an interpreta- 
tion of this decision favorable to the settlers, yet so foreign 
to their own selfish purposes, urged troops upon Wyo- 
ming, upon the arrival of which " the inhabitants suffered 
little less than when abandoned to their most cruel and 
savage enemies. The unhappy husbandman saw his 
cattle driven away, his barns on fire, his children robbed 
of their bread, and his wife and daughters a prey to li- 
centious soldiery."- Memorials and petitions, couched 
in respectful tone and language, sent repeatedly to the 
Assembly, met with open derision or contemptuous silence. 
It was well for Wyoming, feeble yet unshrinking, to 
stand alone in the war-path in time of massacre and blood- 
shed, and grapple with the blows otherwise aimed at tlie 
lower inland settlements of Pennsylvania, but not to cji- 
joy even the desolation of wild-woods without insult and 
disfranchisement. "The inhabitants," says Chapman, 
" finding at length that the burden of their calamities was 
too great to be borne, began to resist the illegal proceed- 



Z. Butler's Petition to Congress, 1784. 
Chapman's History of Wyoming-, p. K!8. 



LACK.VWANNA VALLKY. 179 

ings of their new masters, and refused to comply witli tlie 
decisions of the mock tribunals Avhich had been estab- 
lished. Their resistance enraged the magistrates, and on 
the 12th of Ma}' (1784), the soldiers of the garrison were 
sent to disarm them, and under this pretense one hundred 
and fifty families Avei-e turned out of their dwellings, many 
of which were burnt, and all ages and sexes reduced to 
the same destitute condition. After being plundered of 
their little remaining property, they were driven from the 
valley and compelled to proceed on foot through the 
wilderness by way of the Lackawaxen to the Delaware, 
a distance of about eighty miles. During^ this journey 
the unhappy fugitives suffered all the miseries which 
human nature appears to be capable of enduring. Old 
men, whose children were slain in battle, widows with 
their infant children, and chilcben without parents to pro- 
tect them, were here companions in exile and sorrow, and 
wandering in a wilderness where famine and ravenous 
beasts continued daily to lessen the number of the suiferei-s. 
One shocking instance of suffering is related by a survivor 
of this scene of death ; it is the case of a mother whose 
infant having died, roasted it by piecemeal for the daily 
subsistence of her remaining children !" ' 

Elisha Harding, Esq., who was one of the exiles, says 
*'it was a solemn scene; parents, their children crying 
for hunger — aged men on crutches— all urged forward by 
an armed force at our heels. The first night we encamped 
at Capoose, the second at Cobb's, the third at Little 
Meadows so called, cold, hungry, and drenched with i-ain, 
the poor women and children suffering much." 

In fact, the mutual hatred of each party, clunished from 
Capoose to Wyoming with every expression of bitterness, 
was so intense and general, and the settlei's up the lesser 
valley shown so little clemency by the nomadic hordes 
of Pennymites sent up from Sunbury and elsewhere, that 

' Chapman's History of Wyoming, p. 13S. 



180 HISTORY OF THE 

even Brigadier- General Armstrong, afterward Scci-etary of 
War, harsh and covetons himself, reported to President 
Dickenson in October, 1784, that "the treatment of tlie 
Lackawany people has been excessively cruel."' ' Vol- 
untary evidence so explicit from such a quarter, needs no 
corroborative testimony to give it weight. 

No person suspected of being a well-wisher of the Yan- 
kees, remained in the settlement unharmed and unmo- 
lested. Nor was the rude expulsion of the inhabitants, 
who, thus dragging themselves along, out of the valley, 
too weak and despairing to offer resistance, until they 
sank to the ground from hunger and exhaustion, to await 
the coarse instincts of their pursuers, more merciless than 
the savages' wild woi"k six years before with brand and 
battle-ax. 

Thus for \\\Q fifth and last time was every New England 
emigrant expelled from the Lackawanna within twelve 
years, to find a home in the vacant wilderness with their 
perishing children and wives, or journey on foot to the Del- 
aware, beyond the reach of their pursuers, if not carried 
to Easton jail. No portion of the American frontier in the 
early history of the country so wantonly and perennially 
inflicted sorrows upon the peaceful adventurer as did the 
Lackawanna from 1763 to 1784. 

While this ferocious conduct on the part of Pennsylva- 
nia soldiers was repudiated and condemned by the State, 
the authorities, chagrined at the indignation her rash and 
incompetent instruments had evoked throughout the con- 
federation, it had the effect, indirectly, of creating the new 
count}^ of Luzerne two years afterward. 

After being released from jail, whither nearly all the 
male portion of the inhabitants had been dj-iven, charged 
with no crime that could be sustained, and jet compelled 
to live on water and bread in a dismal prison,' they 
returned to their desolated homes after their release. 

' rennsylvania Archives, 1784, p. 688. ' Ibid., p. 614. 



la(;katvanxa vaij.ey. 181 

The farmers up the Lackawanna, far away from their 
native hills, thus irritated and interrupted in their labors 
by the Pennymites, and occu]ued wholly with thoughts 
of their wrongs, sent Mr. Benjamin Luce the folloT\dng 
notice ■ — 

"Lackawanv. Oct. 8, 1784. 
''Sir 

We understand that you are obstinate and treat the 
Yankees ill ; therefore this is to warn you in the name of 
the Connecticut Claimants to dt']>ai-t and leave the house 
of Richard Hollsted, in 12 hours in peace, or expect 
trouble. If we are obliged to send a party of men to do 
the business you must abide the consequences. 

EBENEZER JOHNSTON, 
WATERMAN BALDWIN." ' 

Thus passed the summer and winter of 1784. The 
spring of 1785 developed no healthier sentiment nor kind- 
lier feelings. 

One or two affidavits, taken from a large number of a 
similar character in the Pennsylvania Archives of 1785, 
serve to illustrate the spirit in which this struggle for 
Wyoming was carried on. In March of this year, a con- 
stable named Charles Manrow affirmed, 

'' That Gangs of the Connecticut Party are daylay gow- 
ing through the Wioming Settlen)ents distressing, the few 
Families yet in the place who are attached to Government, 
by Robing, Plundering and Turning them out of Doors 
in a most naked and Distressed situation, that yesterday 
was a day set for all those People who had not actually 
been Throwed out of Doors by Violence, to be goan that 
they had Received the Last notice without Distress. That 
on the Twenty Second Instant, Six of them came to the 
Hous of this Deponant at about the sun Setting, and 
Turned his Family all out of Doors, Throwed his goods all 
out and Considerable part broke to pieces, Took his Grain. 

• Pa. Arch., 1784, p. G79. 



1S2 HISTORY OF THE 

meet, salt, and many otlier things, tliat his Children had 
no Shoes, and little Ch)athing, Thretning if they Return 
into the Hous, they would burn it down with them in it, 
when this deponant asked the officer of the party, what 
authority he had for such Conduct who Produced his 
Precept Signed Ebenezer Johnson their Col. or Command- 
ing Officer." ' 

''Daniel Swarts, being duly sworn doth depose and 
say, that on the Twenty Second Instant a Gang of Twelve 
of the Connecticut Claimants came to the house of this 
Deponant with arms Thretning the Family so that his 
wife is in a situation, that her life is almost despaired of, 
ordering them Immediately out of Doors, That he has 
been Plundered of the most of his Effects so that his Fam- 
ily is almost naked, himself much beat and abused and 
hailed out of Doors by the hare of his head." *' 

Upon the other hand, every usurpation aiming to oblit- 
erate AVyoming as a Connecticut colony — every scheme 
having for its object the destruction of the industrious 
element, which, amidst wars,' massacres, expulsions, im- 
prisonments, and every intolerant artifice, had brought 
blooming fields out of the wild acres from Nanticoke to 
Capoose, was tried in vain by the Pennsylvania land 
speculators. Diplomacy, the weapon of subtle men, paci- 
hed and accomplished in a short time, what all else had 
failed to do. 

On the 25th of September, 1786, Luzerne County' was 
erected out of that part of Northumbei-hmd County ex- 
tending from Nescopeck Falls to the noithern boundary 
of the State. Within its area, it included all the Yankee 
or New England Colony west of New York, except a few 
settlers along the Delaware and Paupack. It comprised 
within its boundaries all of Susquehanna, Wyoming, 
Columbia, and Lycoming, the greater ])art of Bradford, 
and a fractional portion of Sullivan and Montour. 

' Pa. Arch., 1785, p. 708. ' Ibid., p. 709. 

" Named from the French minister, Chevalier de la Luzerne. — Chapman. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEV. 183 

The year of 1786 marks an important era in upper 
Pennsylvania. The removal of Indian tribes, the peace- 
ful solution of the Connecticut-Pennsylvania contro- 
versy, made many an upland clearing in tlie edge of 
the forest rejoice with the returning emigrant or new 
settler. 

"Deep Hollow" (now Scranton) resounded with the 
stroke of the advancing ax ; — the Lehigh and Lackawaxen 
were each explored by Pennsylvania to learn their navi- 
gable capacity,^ while separating this territory into a new 
county, gave hope and impulse to many a brave heart 
shrinking from no danger, but longing for the unrestrained 
and uninterrupted quiet of rural life. 

The formation of Luzerne County, while it tranquilized 
a contest unparalleled in reciprocal bitterness and perti- 
nacity, also annihilated a bold project of a few of the 
more ambitious Yankee occupants of Wyoming, led by 
Col. John Franklin, John Jenkins, and Solomon Sti-ong, 
of forming a new and independent State oat of the 42d 
Degree of Latitude, through Pennsylvania and a poilion 
of Jlew York, with Wilkes Barre as the capital. 

John Franklin, Solomon Strong, James Fin, a Baptist 
minister, John Jenkins, and Christophei- Holbert conceived 
the scheme. Tlie celebrated Col. Ethan Allen of Ver- 
mont, who was twice visited by Strong, and urged to throw 
the strength of his unbounded popularity into the move- 
ment, finally espoused the cause of the Connecticut claim- 
ants against Pennsylvania.^ By the aid of Col. Allen, 
Vermont had been carved from the rough borders of 
New York in spite of remonstrance or force, and why 
could not an independent Republic be established at 
Wyoming in deliance of the wishes and power of a State, 
dishonoring its robes by harsh intercourse with a young 
border colony which had stood for years in blood for its 
defense, like a Roman sentinel on the outer wall 1 Six 

• Col. Rec, vol. XV., p. 65. » See Pa. Arch , 1783-G, pp. 7(Jl-i-6. 



184 HI8TOKV OF 'lUE 

hundred men, mostly Yankees, were here, which witli 
the invincible Green Mountain Boys, obtained by asking, 
and tlie Connecticut party from the West Branch of th*^ 
Susquehanna, whither Mr. Fin had been sent to develop 
and strengthen the enterprise among the inhabitants, it was 
reasonably supposed that a body so formidable in num- 
bers, commanded by a colonel so renowned and brave as 
he was known to be, having the right and possession of the 
valleys and all roads to and from them both by land and 
water, would be able not only to repel all opposing force, 
extinguish the claim and grasping avidity of Pennsyl- 
vania, but triumphantly assert and achieve independence. • 
The appearance of Col. Allen at Wyoming at this time, 
clad in his Revolutionary regimentals, while the public 
mind down the Susquehanna and up the Lackawanna, 
favorably discussed the contemplated project, gave to it 
still greater importance. 

The creation of the new county of Luzerne, which was 
originally intended merely as an instrument to defeat 
these wronged yet patriotic schemers— and nothing more 
— introduced elements and authority into the Lacka- 
wanna and AVyoming domain, Avhicli the quick, keen eye 
of Col. Allen saw it would be folly, if not treason, to op- 
pose. The colonel soon afterward returned to Vermont. 
Aside from a collision necessarily renewed and long- 
continued between the respective States concerned b}- 
fostering the design with arms, it is impossible foi- 
the broadest calculator to-day to estimate the conse- 
quences resulting to the country, especially to the Lacka- 
wanna and Wyoming portion of it, had the projected 
State, with the hero of Ticonderoga as its Governor, been 
wrought into being. 

Col. Franklin, the offending front and acknowledged 
head of the Connecticut party, was afterward arrested, 
thrust into a Philadelphia prison, loaded with chains, 
and fed in the dark, damp cell upon bread and water ; and 
yet after he was released, in October, 1787, upon his own 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY, 185 

parole,- he returned to the valley, and althougli, like all 
the settlers, adverse to the broad, bold usurpations of the 
Provincial speculators, who had been shamefully wronged, 
he smoked the pipe of peace, and sought with persistent 
steadiness and honesty to aid the operations of the various 
compromising laws. 

The questions at issue, aequiiing importance at the 
expense of the interests of the settlements, being no 
longer known, men of peaceful nature but public enter- 
prise began to project highways in the county among 
which was a public road or turnpike, from the Delaware, 
near Stroudsburg, to the incipient village of Montrose, tlien 
in Luzerne. In March, 1788, five commissioners, con- 
sisting of Henry Drinker, Tench Coxe, John Nicholson, 
Mark Wilcox, and Tench Francis, were elected for 
this purpose." The route, surveyed at the expense of 
the State, remained unbuilt for years. In May following, 
commissioners were appointed by Pennsylvania, to visit 
Luzerne County and examine tlie quantity and quality 
of land within the seventeen certified townships, for 
the purpose of enabling the House to tix upon a prop- 
er compensation to be paid the owners thereof. Two 
townships, viz. : Pittston and Providence, embraced all 
the domain settled in the Lackawanna Valley. The latter 
being five miles square, contained 16,000 acres and ran 
from the township of Lackawa, east of Cobb Mountain, to 
the Moosic elevation separating Exeter from Providence. 
Capoose, rich in agricultural resource and intrenched in 
the shade of pines, boundless and beautiful in their ex- 
pansion, was the principal point, inhabited by three or 
four families. 

A number of settlers in the Lackawanna had bought 
and paid both the Susquehanna Comj^any and the State 
of Pennsylvania for their lands, but in order to restore 
harmony, and give full operation to the compromising 

' Col. Rec, vol. XV., p. 304. " Ibid., p. 425. 



186 mSTOKY OF THE 

law, they surrendered tlieir titles again to the State for a 
mere nominal consideration, and purchased their own 
lands again at the appraisement of the Commissioners 
appointed by the State. 

Such land, according to its quality, was divided into 
four classes : — 

"As soon as forty thousand acres should be so released 
to the State, and the Connecticut settlers, claiming land to 
the same amount, should bind themselves to submit to 
the determination of the Commissioners, then the law 
was to take effect ; and the Pennsylvania claimants, who 
had so released their land, were to receive a compensation 
for the same from the State Treasury, at the rate of five 
dollars per acre for lands of the first class, three dollais 
for the second, one dollar and fifty cents for the third, 
and twenty-five cents for lands of the fourth class. Tlie 
Connecticut settlers were also to receive patents from the 
State confirming their lands to them, upon condition of 
paying into the Treasury the sum of two dollars per 
acre for lands of the first class, one dollar and twenty 
cents for lands of the second class, fifty cents for lands 
of the third class, and eight and one-third cents for 
lands of the fourth class — the certificates issued by the 
Commissioners to regulate the settlement of accounts in 
both cases. Thus, while the State was selling her vacant 
lands to her other citizens at twenty-six cents an acre, she 
demanded of the Connecticut settlers a sum which, upon 
the supposition that there was the same quantity of land 
in each class, would average ninety-four cents an acre.''' 

PROVIDENCE TOWNSHIP AND VILLAGE. 

The Lackawanna, from the two Indian villages of Ca- 
poose and Asserughney, was explored in 1753 ; it was 
laid out into two townships in 1770, viz., Pittstown and 
Providence— the first, named after the celebrated Pitt. 

' Chapman, p. 1G9. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 187 

the British Commoner; the hittor after Rhode Island's 
capital, as thirty of the Susqueliauiia Com])aiiy, owiiiii*; 
the wild lands, came from the ''Colony of Rhod-island." 
Pittstowii embraced tlie first five miles of the valley ; 
Providence extended its boundaries still tive miles farther 
up. Both toAvnships unrolled an area of six thousand 
acres, divided into lots of 300 acres each, called shares. 
For greater convenience and availability, lots were some- 
times subdivided into half lots or shares. Providence, 
originally surveyed five miles square, was the sixth town- 
ship formed ; was designated in the Westmoreland Rec- 
ords as "Ye 6''' Town of Capoose," because Capoose, 
cleared of its timber, lay on the ])ath which brought 
emigrating parties into the Monsey town, wiiere they 
w^ere fed on venison and fish, and kindly treated by the 
bow^ and oar's men inhabiting it. These Indians, roaming 
over the territory for twenty years after the original sale 
of the lands, were skilled in the use of the bow and toma- 
hawk, Avhich the French, by lavishing gifts with prod- 
igality, adroitly turned upon the English in 1755-6. At 
the Indian Treaty, held at Easton in the fall of 1758, this 
tribe "brightened the Chain of Friendship and cleared 
the blood from the Council Seats" ever afterAvard. 

Being some ten miles away from Pittstown block-house, 
settlers were less readily prepared to encounter the greater 
danger apparent in this township, than to labor in clear- 
ings more favorably located on the Susquehanna. 

Timothy Keys and Solomon Hocksey, two young men 
from Connecticut, struck the first blow into the woods of 
the new township in 1771. With gun and ax they pene- 
trated the wallowed glen now known as Taylorsville, 
where they built their cabin by the side of the brook 
named from Mr. Keys. One vast park, lilled with deer, 
stood between this creek and Capoose, marked by a single 
foot-path. 

Capoose lands originally fell into the hands of Capt. 
John Howard, from the Susquehanna Company, a gentle 



188 HISTORY OF THE 

man unacquainted witli their precise location or their 
wonderful fitness for immediate culture. As there was 
no disposition to settle them, for the prudential reasons 
already named, he interested with him in the lands Chris- 
topher Avery and '' Isooc Trypp of west-moreland in ye 
County of Litchfield & Colony of Connecticutt in New-Eng- 
land," ^ both bold Yankees, seeking fortune in Wyoming 
as early as 1769. The hxtter, more fearless and determined 
than his felloAvs, could not overlook the garden, where 
orchard and vineyard, cared for no longer by tlie strolling 
braves, enraptured the eye with blossom and promise. 
Near the vacated wigwams he shaped his cabin in 1771, and, 
without clearing a foot of land, planted and raised a crop 
of corn, tlie first season, on the j^lantation deserted but a 
short time previous. Mr. Tripp being neither scalped 
nor endangered daring the winter, others, reassured and 
emboldened by his good luck, sprinkled their cabins 
along the stream, giving an air of comfort to the wilder- 
ness, here and there eruptive Avith stump. 

A lot "in ye Township of New-Providence, alious Ca- 
poose," surveyed to Col. Lodwick Ojidirk, passed into 
the hands of Jolmathan Slocum, in 1771, "on account of 
Doeing ye Duty of a settler," for Ojidirk. This tract, con- 
taijiing 180 acres, was sold to James Bagley, April 29, 
1778. Bagley' s Ford, near the mouth of Leggetf s Creek, 
took its name from this old resident. 

Among the pioneers who purchased lots or shares of 
the Connecticut Susquehanna Company, in the township, 
between 1772-5, the Westmoreland Records mention John 
Dewit, Andrew Hickman, Fred. Curtis, Isaac Tripp, Jr., 
Solomon Johnson, Thos. Pukits, Benj. Baily, Mathew 
Dalson, Ebenezer Searles, James Leggett, Gideon Bald- 
win, John Stevens, Johnathan Slocum, Maj. Fitch, John 
Aldren, Christopher Avery, and Solomon Strong. Solo- 
mon Strong, identified in 1785-6 Avith Col. Ethan Allen, 

' Westmoreland Records. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 189 

John Jeakins, and the brave Jolin B>anklin, in the at- 
tempted formation of a new, distinct State out of West- 
moreland, like Fitch, Searles, Aldren, Stevens, and Oji- 
dirk, had no interest in the township other than a specu- 
lative one ; this was trifling, as Baily acquired his 300 
acres of woodland from Strong, for a " few furs and a 
flint gun."^ 

Land was cheap, and, when purchased for a few shil- 
lings an acre, excavations in the great woods over it were 
only made by hard, patient labor, and, after the trees had 
paid reluctant homage to the ax, their removal and de- 
sti'uction gave infinite trouble and work. Instead of leav- 
ing the fallen timber to season for a year, and then, when 
favored by a long dry spell, apply the torch for a good 
burn, making "logging" barely necessary, the pioneer, 
pressed by the wants of his family, drew the green trees 
into log-heaps where they were roasted and burned into 
ashes. And even after the new land was tlius prepared 
for tlie reception of seed, the corn, promising reward to 
the toiling husbandman, must be defended against tlic 
vigilant raccoon and squirrel, before the husking bp(^ 
secured the crop in the garret, away from its nimble 
enemies. 

The houses, beginning to gladden the waste places, had 
but a single story, were built from green logs up-rolled 
and chinked with mud, to protect the inmates from cold, and 
gave one-third of this space to huge stone chimneys. Ther(^ 
was not in the entire township, in 1775, so strange a feature 
as three houses in a cluster, or two within sight of eacli 
other. Every farmer was his own carpenter, and thus 
every style of architecture became popular. Doors wei-e 
made without boards ; windows, without glass. The rich 
skin of the fawn easily obtained, or the bushy robe 
snatched from old bruin while visiting the barn-yard, 
brought comfort and ornament to the cabin, warmed in 

'Westmoreland Records. 



100 IJISTOEY OF THK 

winter by piles of fire-wood, and illuminated at niglit witli 
pine-knots everywhere abundant. 

The township had neither physician nor lawyer for a 
long time afterward, nor does it appear that any physical 
or material interest suffered from their absence ; for what 
tonic can equal hard work and coarse food in the field or 
forest, and what law compare Avith common honesty, 
blended with common sense ? 

No newspa])ers entered their cabins, for none were 
l)iinted in the country ; almanacs, selling for a shilling 
a-piece, supplied the settlement with the news of the year. 
Falling and burning the giant timber gave recreation to 
the settlement, disturbed by no breach of the social 
relations. 

Nothing exhibits the New England character in a light 
more favorable and philanthropic, than the fixed organic 
rule of the proprietors of each township, of setting apart 
and reserving forever certain lots for gospel and school 
purposes before others were offered to the settler. In 
<^very township one lot of three hundred acres was thus 
reserved for the first minister of the gospel in fee — one for a 
parsonage — ^one for the support of a school ; three were 
reserved as public lots, subject to the future disposition 
of the town. Nearly 2,000 acres of land were thus held 
in Providence Township. Paths cut through the woods 
— over hills instead of around them — were more bridle- 
ways than roads, wliile fallen trees or friendly ford-ways 
served for stream-crossing. 

"The town of Westmoreland legally incorporated for 
civil purposes, was about seventy miles square, and 
could only be established by Supreme Legislative author- 
ity. Within this limit a number of townships of five or 
six miles square, were laid off by the Delaware and Sus- 
quehanna Companies, divided into lots, which were 
drawn for by Proprietors, or sold. These townships 
had power to make needful laws and bye-laws for their 
i nterior regulation, the establishment of roads, the care or 



LACKAWANNA VALLFA'. 191 

disposal of vacant lots, and other matters entirely local. 
Of tliese, there already existed Wilkes Barre, Hanover, 
Plymouth, Kingston or the Forty, Exeter, Pittston, and 
Caponse or Providence ; more were from time to time 
added. A town meeting, tlierefore now when ' legally 
warned,' called together all the Fi-eemen, in all the town- 
ships or settlements, from tlie Delaware to fifteen miles 
beyond the Susquehanna, and from the Lehigh north to 
Tioga Point." '^ At the first town meeting legally warned 
and held in Westmoreland, "at eight of the clock in ye 
forenoon, March je 20th, 1774." for the purpose of choos- 
ing town officers, all this vast territory, sparsely occu])ied, 
was divided into eight separate districts. Wilkes Bai-re, 
Plymouth, Hanover, and Kingston, made four districts. 
Voted, "thatPittson be one district by ye name of Pitts- 
ton district ; and that Exeter, Providence, and all the 
lands west and north to ye town line, be one district, b}^ 
ye name of ye North District ; and that Lackaway settle- 
ment and Blooming Grove, and Sheolah, to be one 
district, and to b;^ called by ye name of ye Lackaway 
district ; and that Coshutunk, and all ye settlements on 
Delaware, be one district, and joined to ye other districts, 
and known by ye name of ye east district.''- From the 
Lackawanna portion of the town, or "ye North District,'' 
Isaac Tripp, Esq., who declined serving, was chosen 
Selectman for the ensuing year, John Dewit of Capoose 
chosen of the Survei/ors of 7iighioaf/s, John Abbot, one of 
the Fence- Viewers, Gideon Baldwin, one of the Listers^ 
Barnabas Gary and Timothy Keys, two of the Grand 
Jurors, and James Brown one of the TijtMng men. 
These pers(.ns, the old records informs us. were "all 
loyal subjects of His Gracious Majesty King George tlie 
Third." 

August Hunt and Frederick Vanderlip, two residents 
of New Providence, were expelled from the township at 

'Miner's Wyoming, p. 154. " Westmorelanl Records, 1774. 



192 HISTORY OF THE 

this meeting, because they were men " that have, and now 
do so conduct themselves by spreading reports about ye- 
town of Westmoreland, much to ye disturbance of ye 
good and wholsome inhabitants of this town, and by their 
taking up and holding land under ye pretention of ye 
title of Pennsylvania."^ "Voted tliat Hunt be expelled 
this purchase, and he be, as soon as may be, removed out 
of ye town by ye committee at ye cost of this Company,. 
in such way as ye Committee shall think proper."- 

"Voted that ye Indian apple Tree, so called at Capooso,. 
shall be ye Town Sign Post for ye town of New Provi- 
dence."^ Each township had a prominent tree as a Town 
Sign Post, which, in the absence of press, newspaper, or 
almanac, made a public point where all notices of a public 
character had to be affixed to be legal. Such tree notices, 
always written — for all the inhabitants could read and 
write — made a meeting legally warned. This apple-tree, 
venerable in its broad branches, as if arrayed in the 
foliage of its youth, planted more than a century and a 
half ago, yet blooms and bears its fruit by the road-side, 
between Providence and Scranton, a few hundred feet 
above the site of the ancient village of Capoose. 

In the winter of 1775, there was a meeting of the settlers 
under this apple-tree, to dispose of land on the Susque 
hanna at the site of the present village of Tunkhannock, 
as can be seen by "a list of men's names that drew for 
lots in the township of Putnam (now Tunkhannock), in 
Susquehannah, Dec. 20th, 1775, at Providence." ■* Among 
persons thus drawing lots appear the names of Isaac and 
Job Tripp, William West, Paul Green, Job Green, Zebu 
Ion Marcy, and John Gardner, 

An unsuccessful effort was made at this time to change 
the name of Providence for that of Massassoit^ as is 
shown by the old surveys and maps preserved among the 
archives of the county. The few savages remaining in 

' Westmoreland Records, 1774. * Ibid. 'Dud. ■• Rjid., 1775. 



LACKAWANNA VAI.LKY. 193 

the valley in 1776-7, as they could not preserve their 
neutrality despite the tempting offers of the Tories 
and British in 1778, left charred and crimson traces of 
tlieir presence. Settlers fled to Stroudsburg with their 
affrighted loved ones, or removed temporarily to Wyo- 
ming, where the muttering of the savages hissed down 
through the forests from the upper lakes. Isaac Tripp, 
Timothy Keys, James Hocksey, and Andrew Hickman, 
with his wife and child, alone remained. These few, 
having dispute only with wolves, panthers, and bears, 
around the rich intervale of Capoose, living amicably with 
the hand preparing to strike, gave no thought of the 
danger of ambush or encounter with a foe until it came. 
And even when the Senecas, dancing the war song in 
prospective triumph, ready to sting with their arrows, 
poisoned and loaded, hastened from their wild parks into 
the flood of canoes moored for Wyoming, these settlers, 
conscious of no wrong done by themselves, cherished the 
liope that their frail cabins, isolated and remote, would be 
spared by the bands which had promised neutrality or 
friendship. 

After the Wyoming massacre, it took but a few quick 
strokes of the hatchet to do the work of depopulating the 
entire Lackawanna Valley, leaving it a waste, where 
the camp fire again gleamed upon the roaming con- 
querors. 

A few months after the massacre, the inhabitants re- 
turned to Wyoming to bury the dead and secure the 
remnant of the crops ; but not until after Gen. Sullivan, in 
the summer of 1779, had carried fire and bullet through 
the Indian lodges along the upper Susquehanna, did the 
few former occupants of Providence lands venture back to 
the ashes on their farms, where their cabins once were 
standing. These few persons, influenced by the objective 
attitude of the Pennymites, were able to enlarge the range 
of agriculture in the township but little, if any. 

In 1786, Isaac Tripp, 3d, emigrated from Rhode Island 

13 



194 HISTORY OF THE 

with his son, Stephen, then ten years old. He brought 
with him at this time no other member of his family, and 
it was not until 1788 that his residence at Capoose became 
permanent. 

Miner informs us that a company of soldiers were at 
Capoose at the time of the Wyoming massacre, but, as all 
the valuable papers having reference to the history of the 
township's affairs at this particular time were destroyed, 
it is impossible to tell the precise time they retired before 
the savages ascending the Lackawanna. 

The pacification of the valleys in 1786-8, by measures 
long delayed, imparted new impulse to every interest by 
removing all barrier to agricultural progress and pros- 
perity. Men began to enjoy a conscious security, denied 
them till now, which expanded into measures of public 
good. 

The route for a public highway across Luzerne had 
been surveyed in 1778 by legislative autliority, the com- 
missioners of which reported "that Providence, situated 
favorably between two mountains, would be of vast im- 
portance to the road."' These facts being promulgated, 
had their influence with men willing to wrestle with the 
forest for slight reward and secure homes. 

Aside from the structure at the mouth of Leggett's 
Brook, put up unframed by Mr. Leggett in 1775, to be 
abandoned soon afterward, the first house erected upon the 
site of the present village of Providence was a low double 
log affair, built in 1788 by Enoch Holmes. The single 
apple-tree, standing near the northeast corner of Oak and 
Main streets, marks the precise location of his cabin. 
Along the terraced slope of Providence, the heavier wood 
had been cleared away, either by Indian husbandmen or 
b)'' whirlwinds, such as in later years disturbed the 
equanimity of the young village, thus rendering necessary 
but little intrusion upon the thickets to fit the land for 

■ Commissioners' Report, 1778, p. 10. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 195 

planting oi- pasturage. He remained liere two years with 
his family, pounded his maize and prepared his hominy, 
subsisting upon venison, bear meat, and the varied prod- 
ucts of his clearing, in peaceful solitude. 

In the winter months he constructed brooms, baskets, 
and snow-shoes from the laminated ash and basswood, 
carrying them, on foot to Wilkes Barre to exchange foi- 
the most needed commodities. With no capital but a 
large family, increasing with each succeeding year, he 
toiled upon his hill-side opening until 1790, when he 
removed north of Leggett's Creek. 

Daniel Waderman, of Hamburg, Germany, was the 
second settler. While visiting London in 1775, he was 
seized by the British press-gang, and forced into unwill- 
ing service. He was present at the battle of Bunker 
Hill, followed the fortunes of the British until 1779, when 
lie was taken prisoner on the Mohawk. Taking the oath 
of allegiance, he enlisted in the American service, and, by 
his faithful de])ortment as a soldiei- during the remainder 
of the war, proved himself an unquestioned patriot. 
Under the shadows of the bluff, deepened by foliage 
extending down to the edge of tlu^ Lackawanna, this 
scarred veteran, in 1790. brought forth his cabin. The 
house of Daniel Silknian now occupies its site. For a 
period of twenty-one years Mr. Waderman lived here in 
comparative thrift and contentment, acquiring, by fru- 
gality, means to purchase wilder lands farther up the 
valley, where he died in 1835. 

Preserved Taylor, Coonrad Lutz. John Gifford, Constant 
Searles, John House, Jacob Lutz, Benjamin Pedrick, 
Solomon Bates, and the Athertons, settled in the township 
in 1790, while John Miller, afterward famous for minis- 
terial achievements and other good works, unbosomed the 
uplands of Abington. During this year alterations were 
made in the township lines.' 

While townships, as surveyed under Connecticut juris- 
diction, retained the name originally given them, their 



190 HI8T0KY OF THE 

boundaries were purposely extinguished, or so radical!}' 
altered by Pennsylvania landholders as to lose in a great 
measure their former identity and relation. 

In March, 1790, Providence townshij) line, defined 
twenty years previous by Connecticut settlers, was ob- 
literated by the Luzerne County Court, which divided the 
county into eleven townships, one of which, Lakawanak, 
extended over the Lackawanna Valley. 

The people of the old upper township of Providence, 
or Capoose, readily acquiescing in arrangements inaugu- 
rated by Pennsylvania, were thus compelled to transact 
all business of a public nature at Pittston, some ten or 
twelve miles away from their homes. 

The inhabitants asked for a restoration of Providence 
township, because "the Town of Providence," says their 
petition, "labor under great disadvantages by reason 
of being annexed to Lackawanna, that the inhabitants 
live remote from the place where the Town meets on pub- 
lic occasions, and that they have a very bad river to cross, 
which is impassible at some times." In 1792 the petition 
was granted. 

The first bridge across the Lac.'kawanna was built in 
1796. Until this time there were three public fords across 
tlie stream above Pittston, viz.: Tripp's, Lutze's, and 
Baggley's. Along the stream, where the banks were k)w 
and the waters shallow, a place was selected for a ford- 
way, which, in the absence of a horse ora tree, was crossed 
on foot alike by heroic women and men. The abrupt 
character of the bank of the stream at Providence village, 
and for quarter of a mile below it, allowed of no crossing 
in this manner, nor was the Lackawanna at this point span- 
ned by a bridge until the Drinker Turnpike rendered one 
necessary in 1826. 

The two- wheeled ox-cart, drawn at a snail' space, ovei 
roads filled with stones, obstructed by hills, served the 
purposes of the settlement during the summer months, 
while the cumbrous snow-shoe or the wooden sled, bent 



LACKAWANNA YAI.LEV. 197 

from the oak or beech, brought happiness to many a home. 
Oxen were generally used both for fanning and traveling. 
In 1792 there were in Providence township but ten horses, 
twenty-eight oxen, and tifty-two cows. 

The original Griffin in Providence was Stephen, who, in 
1794 left Westchester County, N. Y., to battle with Penn- 
sylvania forests. He located near Lutze's ford way. 
Thos. Griffin became a resident of tlie valley in 1811, 
James in 1812, and Joseph and Isaac in 1816. The far- 
seen hill, below Hyde Park, crowned on its western edge 
by a noble park reserved for deer, is known throughout 
the valley as "Uncle Joe Griffin's" place, where he 
lived for half a century. He tilled the office of justice 
of the peace for many years. In 1839-40, conjoined with 
the late Hon. Chester Butler, he represented the interests 
of the county in the State Legislature with credit. With 
the exception of Isaac; Tripp, Sen., sent to Connecticut 
from Westmoreland, in 1777, Jos. Griffin, Esq., was the 
first man thus honored by the people of the valley. 

The taxables of Providence township, embracing t]i<' 
entire settlement from Rixe's Gap to Pittston, numbered 
in 1796 ninety persons, sixty-one only of Avhom resided 
^v'ithin its boundaries, as will be seen by the following 
"Providence Assessment for the Year 1706." 



198 



HISTORY OF THE 



N.inips (if Inhabitants. 


i 

o 


c5 


CB 


Ocoupation or Profession. 


Residence. 


Tax. 


Atlierton Corn's. 






2 

1 


Farmer. 
Farmer. 

do 

do 

Innkeeper. 

do 
Preacher of the Gospel. 
Tailor. 
Farmer. 

do 

do 

do 

Farmer. 

Spinster. 
Farmer. 

Farmer. 

Physician. 
Farmer. 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 
do 

do 

do 

do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
do 

do 
do 


Providence. 
do 
do 
do 

do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
do 
Wilkes Barre. 

Providence, 
do 
do 

Providence. 

Wilkes Barre. 
Providence. 

do 

do 

do 
Rhode Island 
Providence. 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 
New York. 
Providence. 

do 
Stockbridge. 
Providence. 
Connecticut. 
Nantacook. 
Providence. 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 
Pitts ion. 


8G 


Atherton, .fohn. . . . 




1 51 


Atherton, Klezcr. 




1 29 


Atwater, Benj 




1 26 


Abbott, Philip i. . 


0'! 




■>, 




2.G5 








4.69 


Bishop, Wm. 




1 00 








■2 


.16 


Bagley, James ... 


2 


3 34+ 


Brown, Benj 


90 


Bagley, Asher 








] 56 


Bagley, Jesse 




.07 






.75 


Bid well, David 








1.25 








.1 


.06 








1.01 


Corey, Phebe 


2 

9 


2.26 


Coo-well, William. 


32 


Cobb, Asa 


2! 4 . . 


1 56it 


Carey, John 






1 .20 




25 


Clark, William 








.72i 
.65 


















. 35 


Dolpli, Aaron 

Dolph, Charles 


2 


1 




.71 
1.77 


Dolph Moses 




7(» 


Dolph, Joimathan 

Dean, Johnathan 


4 


3 




1 .99 
1 1(1 


Goodrido-. Wm 


2 
2 

2 


I 
1 




1 .4 1 


Gardner, Stephen 

Gififord, John 


2.55^ 

.2-1 




.T> 


How. John 


1 


2 

1 


■2 


1.14 
1.14 


Hoyt, Ransfbrd 




.3:! 


Hardv, Wm. 




1 

1 

1 


1 


.07^ 
1.26 
.65 


Holmes, Enock 

Hall. Nathan 








2.00 


Flalstead, John 

Halsiead, Jonar. 




1 


1 


.06 
.20 








1..33 


Fellows. Joseph. 








.30 


Howard, James 








.60 


Hibbert, Ebenezer 






.40 


Lutz, Coonrad 




^ 


1 

1 
1 


1.44 
.16 






1 
3 

2 

1 
1 


.62 


Lewis, James.. . .... 


4 


2.27 


Lntzs, Mich 


.50 


Lutz, Jacob 


1.07 




2 


3.03 


Miller, Christopher 

Miller, Samuel 


.07 
.30 


.MacDaniel, John 








1.05 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY 



199 



Names of Inhabitants. 


ti 

O 
o 


1 




Occupation or Profession. 


Eesi.lence. 


Ta.x. 


MilH John 


Farmer. 

do 
do 
do 

do 

do 

do 
do 
do 

Farmer, 
do 
do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

d.) 

do 

do 
Merchant. 
Spinster. 
Farmer. 

do 


Pittston. 
Rhode Island. 
Providence. 

do 

do 

Wilkes Barre 

Providence. 

New York. 

Providence. 

do 

Providence. 

do 

do 
Lonenburg. 

Providence. 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 
Pittston. 
Providence. 

do 

do 

Connecticut. 


.77 


(Ibedike, Lodwick 

Park, Ebenezer 


2 
2 




.60 
1.69 




.25^ 


Pedrick. Ben 


2.07i 


Potter David 


.60 










1.10 










.55 


f>ot?« Natban 








1.72^ 










.IH 


Kozel John 




3.00 


Smith Thomas 


2 


^ 




1.G2 




.6t; 






1 70 


Siinral Wm 








.75 




1 


.79 


Searles Constant . . 


1.14 


Sill'' Sliadrick 




1.10 










.60 


Stanion Wni 


2 
2 
2 


I 




.85 


i'aylor, Daniel 

Taylor, John 

Tavlor, Preserved 

Taylor, AbndiMni 

Tripp, Isaac. Jr 


1.71 
.88 

1.82 
.56 
.44i 

1. 00 


Tripp Isaac 


^ 






15.89 


Wright Thoma"^ 


2 12 


Washburn, Elizabetii. . . 
("a rev Barnabas 








.45 


Tompkins Ben. 








.89 


Lewis James 






.10 


Gavlor, 








.00 



Town Meetings were first held in Providence at the 
house of Stephen Tripp, in 1813. The entire vote of the 
township, then extending jurisdiction over the subse- 
quent toAvnships of Lackawanna, Covington, Jefferson, 
Blakeley, Greenfield, and Scott, numbered eighty-two, as 
follows: — 





46 

47 




.36 


1814. 




3G 


1815. 


51 





44 


1828. " " . .. . 


55 





5j. 



As late as 1816, wild game thronged the thickets around 
Slocum Hollow. Benjamin Fellows, Esq., a hale old 
gentleman, informs the writer that he has often seen 
fiftv turkevs in a flock feed i no; on the stubble in his 



200 HISTORY OF THE 

father's field, in Hyde Park, while deer tramped over the 
plowed land like herds of sheep. In 1804, in company 
with other hunters, he killed both panthers and bears in 
the woods between Hyde Park and Slocura Hollow. 

The general history of the township contains little of 
general interest. Roads w^ere few and rugged, and the 
inhabitants, priding themselves in assiduous labor and 
frugality, lived and died contented. They enjoyed nei- 
ther churches nor school-houses, for none had yet emerged 
from the clearings ; were annoyed by few or only light 
taxes ; and yet kindness and hospitality were so blended 
with their daily toil on farms rendered fertile by a good 
burn or unvaried cultivation, that the social relations of 
the residents of the township were rarely, if ever, dis- 
turbed by sectarian partiality or political asperities. The 
general health was good, with no prevailing sickness until 
1805, when the typhus fever, or "the black tongue," as it 
was termed, carried its ravages into settlements just begin- 
ning to feel the impulse of prosperity, along the borders of 
the Susquehanna and the Lackawanna. Drs. J osepli Davis 
and Nathaniel Giddings, the latter of whom settled in 
Pittston in 1783, became the healing Elishas to many a 
needy household. H. C. L. Von Storch settled in Provi- 
dence in 1807. A German by birth, he inherited the 
habits of industry and economy characterizing the people, 
which in a few years enabled him to unfold the field from 
the forest, and gather about him a competency. 

The main portion of Providence village stands upon land 
which came into possession of James Griffin in the winter 
of 1812, who moved with his ftiraily into the solitary log- 
house vacated by Holmes. The labor of destroying the 
large trees upon the new land for the reception of seed 
not always rewarding the husbandman with the yield ex- 
pected, owing to the occurrence of frost and the presence 
of wild animals, was so slow, that the settlement of the 
township, encouraged only by a lumber and agricultural 
interest, made tardy advancement. As late as 1816, three 



LACKAWANNA VALLEV. 201 

settlers only lived in the immediate vicinity of the Borough, 
Daniel Waderman, James and Thomas Gi'iffin. The next 
year a clearing was commenced in the Notch by Levi 
Travis. 

The land originally reserved in Providence exclusively 
for school purposes, owing to the prolonged Wyoming 
dispute and cliange of jurisdiction, lay idle. Forty - 
eight years elapse after the settlement of the valley 
before a school-house was erected within its limits. The 
iirst school-house, diminutive in proportion, but yet sufR- 
€ient for the demand upon it, was built, a few rods below 
the Holmes house, in 1818. It is still standing b}- the 
road-side and used as a dwelling. Previous to this, 
schools were kept in private houses, and sometimes under 
the shade of a tree in summer, and some, if taught at all, 
were taught to read, write, and cipher by the fireside 
at home. In the upper portion of the village, near the 
terminus of the Peoples Street Railway, stands an old 
brown school-house, erected in 1834, known as the Heer- 
man's or "Bell school-house." The bell giving the 
house its name, costing tifteen dollars, paid for by sul)- 
scription, hung in the modest belfry for forty-live years, 
when it was transferred to the Graded School building. 
It was the first bell ever heard on the plains of the Lack- 
awanna, and as its animating tones rang out on the air, 
and were borne by the breeze over hill and valley, it 
awakened a pride that was ever cherished by the older 
inhabitants until its sudden and vandalic removal a few 
years since. The bell is yet sound and sweet in its vibi-a- 
tions, and serves to call the unwilling urchin to school as 
in days of yore. A partisan spirit was introduced into 
the school, which so embittered the relations of the neigli- 
borhood as to result in the erection of a new scliool-house 
across the river in 1836 under Democratic auspices. 

Dr. Silas B. Robinson came into the townsliip in 1823, 
where he creditably practiced his profession nearly forty 
years. So long had he lived in the township, and so well 



202 



HISTOKY OF THK 



was he known for his blunt manners, bhimeless life, and! 
kind heart, even with all his pardonable eccentricities, 
that his presenct^ was welcome everywhere, and his sud- 
den death in 1860 widely lamented. 

Nothing tended to give a vigorous direction to Provi- 
dence toward a inllage more than the Philadelphia and 
Great Bend Turnpike. This highway, well known as the 
"Drinker Turnpike," promised as it passed through the 
village with a tri-weekly stage-coach and mail, to land 
passengers from the valley in Philadelphia after two days 
of unvarying jolting. This road, chartered in 1819, com- 
pleted in 1826, was the first highway through Cobb's 
Gap. The Connecticut road, long traversed by the emi- 
grant, casting a wishful look into the valley, passed over' 
the rough summit of the mountain, here cut in twain by 
Roaring Brook. The Luzerne and Wayne County turn- 
pike built this year, intersected Drinker's road at Piovi- 
dence. 

As the village from these causes, and from its ceiitial 
position began to grow into importance, Slocum Hollow, 
shorn of its glory by the abandonment of its forge and 
stills, was judged by the Department at Washington as. 
being too obscure a point for a post-office, as the receipts 
for the year 1827 averaged only $3.37|- per quarter. The 
office was removed the next year to its thriftier rival, 
Providence. 

' The change that a third of a century brings our race, can bo readily appreciated 
by a glance at "The hstof Letters remaining in Providence Post OfiBce, July 1, 
1335 " as copied from the Northern Pennsyloanian, a weekly paper printed in 
Carbondale, by Amzi Wilson. Of the persons thus addressed but a single oua 
sur /ives, — the venerable Zephaniah Knapp of Pittston. 
Rlezor H. Atlierton. Henry Pepper, 



.Tohn Lurne, 
Hannah Van Stork, 
Barney Carey, 
Aug. Jenks, 
Zephaniah Knapp, 
Maria Chase, 
Joseph Lance, 
William G. Knapp, 



Francis Mead, 
John Morden, 
Wm. C. Green, 
Thos. T. Atherton, 
John Bilson, 
David Krotzer, 
Michael Agnew, 



Amasa Cook. 
David Patrick, 
Stephen Tripp, 
Alva Dana, 
Selah Mead, 

P. C. , 

Samuel Stevens, 
Oliver PhilUps, 



Louisa Fore^-t. 
David S. Ri'-e. 
Oomer PhUlips, 
Roberta Hury, 
Phineas Carman. 
Samuel Wadermaa,, 
Isaac Searles, 
W. Whitlock. 



JOHN VAUGH^i, .Jii. P. M. 



LACKAW.VNNA VALLKY. 203 

On what is now the southwest (corner of Market and 
Main streets, Elisha S. Potter and Michael McKeal in 
1828 inaugurated a country store upon the popular princi- 
ple of universal credit, and they were so successful in 
establishing it, that some of their dues are yet outstanding. 
The late Elisha S. Potter, and our townsman Nathaniel 
Cottrill, looking forward to the future value of the idle 
acres surrounding " Razorville,'' as the village was long 
called, purchased fourteen acres of the Holmes tract in 
1828, including the fine water privileges, for $285 per acre. 
Mr. Cottrill shortly afterward came into possession of 
the entire interest of Esq. Potter, and (^rected a grist-mill 
upon the premises. The village has been visited by three 
tornadoes since its settlement. The most fearful one, or 
the "great blow," swept away a great portion of the vil- 
lage on the 3d of July, 1834. During the afternoon of 
that day, which was one of unusual warmth, the thunder 
now and then breaking from the blackened sky, gave 
notice of the approaching storm. It came with the fury 
of a ti-opical whirlwind. A strong northwesterly^ current 
of air rushing down tiirough Leggett's Gap, met the main 
body as it whirled from the more southern gap, contig- 
uous to Leggett's, and concentrating at a point opposite 
the present residence of Mr. Cottrill, commenced its wild 
work. As it crossed the mountain, it swept down trees 
of huge growth in its progress, leaving a path strewn 
with the fallen forest. 

At Providence seems to have been the funnel of the 
northwest current, which, as it arrived at the Lackawanna, 
was turned by that from the southwest to a northeast 
direction. Before dusk the gale attained its height, when 
the wind, accompanied with clouds of dust, blew through 
the streets, lifting roofs, houses, barns, fences, and even 
cattle in one instance, from the earth and dashing them to 
pieces in the terrible exultation of the elements. 

Nearly every house here was either prostrated, dis- 
turbed, or destroyed in the course of a few seconds. A 



204 HISTORY OF THE 

meeting-liouse, partly built, in the lower part of the vil- 
lage, was blown down and the frame carried a great 
distance. The house and store of N. Cottrill, standing 
opposite the tavern kept by him at this time, was raised 
from its foundation and partly turned around from the 
west to the northwest, and left in this angular position. 
The chimney, howevei-, fell, covering up a cradle hold- 
ing the babe of Mrs. Phinney, but being singularly pro- 
tected by the shielding boards, the child, when found in 
about an hour afterward, was laughing and unharmed. 

Some large square timber, lying in the vicinity, was 
hurled many rods : one large stick, ambitious as the bat- 
tering ram of old, passed endwise entirely through the 
tavern-house, and was only arrested in its progress by 
coming into contact with the hill sloping just back of the 
dwelling, into which it plunged six or seven feet. In its 
journey — o\ forcible entry ^ as lawyers might term it — 
it passed through the bedroom of Mrs. Cottrill, immedi- 
ately under her bed. 

Gravel-stones were driven through panes of glass, leav- 
ing holes as smooth as a bullet or a diamond could make, 
while shingles and splinters, with the Heetness of the feath- 
ered arrow, were thrown into clapboards and other wooden 
obstructions, presenting a strange picture of the fantastic. 

The office of the late Elisha S. Potter, Esq., standing in 
the lower part of the village, was caught up in the screw- 
like funnel of the whirlwind, and carried over one hun- 
dred feet, and fell completely inverted, smashing in the 
roof; it was left in its half-somerset position, standing on 
its bare plates. The venerable and esteemed old squire 
and Mr. Otis Severance, who were transacting business in 
the office at the time, kept it company during its aerial 
voyage, both escaping with less injury than fright. 

The embankment of the old bridge across the Lacka- 
wanna, from its south abutment, was sided with large 
hewn timbers, remaining there for years, and well satu- 
rated with water. On the lower side these were taken 



l.ACKAWANNA VALLEY. 205 

entirely from their bed, and j)itched quite two hundred 
feet into the adjacent meadow. An old aspiring fanning- 
mill, standing at the front door of the grist-mill, upon the 
ground, took flight in the whiilwind, and was carried in 
the door of the second story of the mill, without being 
broken by the power so rudely assailing. 

Along the eastern side of the road leading to Carbon- 
dale, in places where the focus of the current dipped or 
reached the earth, all was wreck and disorder. Young 
hickory-trees left standing by the settlers for shade or 
other purposes, and apple-trees bending with the ripening 
apple, fell like weeds, and the remaining branches and 
roots, twisted, torn, and uprooted, revealed to the passer- 
by the strength of the blow. 

At the present thriving and appropriately -named Ca 
poose works, owned by Mr. Pulaski Carter, there lay a 
strip of meadow upon the bank of the Lackawanna, where 
was standing a small carding-machine. This building was 
quickly demolished, the wool and rolls being spun along 
the fields and woods for miles. Some were carried in an 
oblique direction to CobVs Pond, on the very summit of 
the Moosic Mountain. 

One of the most singular incidents, however, in the phe- 
nomenon of the hurricane, occurred to a young woman 
living half a mile from the village, on the route taken by 
the whirlwind. Like many timid ones of the town, trem- 
ulous at the approach of the lightning and thunder, she 
sought refuge in bed. While smothering in the feathers 
under the covering of the quilt, the bed on which she was 
lying was whirled from the house, just unroofed, and car- 
ried along by the force of the black current of air several 
rods, and landed safely in the meadow adjoining, before 
she was aware of her aerial and unjolting flight. 

In 1849, Providence village was incorporated into a 
borough ; in 1866, consolidated into the city of Scranton, 
forming the flrst and second wards of this young metropo 
lis of the Lackawanna valley. 



206 HISTOKY OF THE 



DUNMORE/ 



Like Scranton, Hyde Park, Green Ridge, Dickson, 
Olyphant, Pecktown, and Petersburg, Dunmore is one of 
numerous villages which sprang from the original township 
of Providence. Purcliased of the natives in 1754 by the 
whites, long before the tomahawk was Hung over the 
Moosic, the territory now embracing this village offered 
its solitude in vain to the pioneers seeking a home in the 
wilderness between the Delaware and the Susquehanna 
until the summer of 1783. At thistime, William AUswoitli, 
a shoemaker by trade, who had visited the Connecticut 
land at Wyoming for the purpose of selecting a place for 
his home the year previous, reached this point at evening, 
where he encamped and lit his fire in the forest where 
Dunmore was thus founded. 

The old Connecticut or Cobb road, shaded by the giant 
pines extending from the summit of the mountain to 
Capoose, had no diverging pathway to Slocuni Hollow. 
No. Six, or Blakeley, because neither of these places had 
yet acquired a settler or a name. From the '' Lackawa " 
settlement, on the Paupack, some four and twenty miles 
from the cabin of Allsworth, there stood but two habi- 
tations in 1783, one at Little Meadows, the other at Cobb's, 
both kept as houses of entertainment. The need of more 
places of rest to cheer the emigrants toiling toward 
Wyoming with heavy burdens drawn by the sober team 
of oxen, induced Mr. Allsworth to fix his abode at this 
spot. While he was building his cabin from trees fallen 
for the purpose of gaining space and material, his covered 
wagon furnished a home for his family. At night, heaps 
of logs were kept burning until long after midnight, to 
intimidate wolves, bears, wild cats, and panthers inhab- 
iting the chaparral toward Roaring Brook and Capoose. 
Deer and bear were so abundant for many years, within 

' Named frcnn the Earl of Dunmore. 



LACKAWANNA VAI.I.KV. 207 

fiight of his clearing, that liis raniily never trusted to his 
rifle in vain for a supply of venison or the substantial 
haunches of the bear. In the fall and winter months, 
wild beasts made incursions Avitli such frequency, tliat 
domestic animals at night could be safely kept only in 
palisaded inclosures. These Avere a strong stockade made 
from the well-driven sapling, and generally built contig- 
uous to the dwelling, into which all kinds of live stock 
were driven for protection after nightfall. Every farmer 
in the township of Providence, unwilling to see his home 
invaded and occupied by the common enemy at the dead 
of night, took this precaution less than eighty years ago. 
And even then they were not exempt from depredation at 
Mr. Allsworth' s. At one time, just at the edge of evening, 
a bear groped his w^ay into the pen wliere some of his 
pigs were slumbering, seized the sow in his brawny paws 
<ind bore the noisy porker hurriedly into the woods, 
where it was seen no more. The affrighted pigs were left 
uiihai-med in the pen. At another time, during the 
absence from home of Mr. Allsworth, a large panther 
came to his place befoi-e sundown in search of food. This 
animal is as partial to veal as the bear is to pork. A calf 
lay in the unguarded inclosure at the time. Upon this 
the panther sprang, when Mrs. Allsworth, alarmed by 
the bleat of the calf, seized a pair of heavy tongs from the 
tire-place, and, with a heroism distinguishing most of the 
women of that day, drove the yellow intruder away 
without its intended meal. The same night, however, the 
calf was killed by the panthei-, which in return was 
•captured in a trap tlie same week, and slain. 

The house of Mr. Allsworth. famed for the constant 
readiness of the host to smooth by his diy jokes and kind 
words the ruggedness of ever}- man's daily road, became 
a common point of interest and attraction to the emigrant 
or the wayfarer. The original cabin of Mr. Allsworth 
stood upon the spot now occupied l)y the brick stoie of 
John D. Boyle. 



208 HISTOKY OF THE 

The descendants of Mr. Allsworth have filled many 
places of trust and usefulness in the county, and adorned 
the various walks of social life. For twelve years this 
pioneer had no neighbors nearer than those living in 
Capoose or Providence. In the summer of 1795, Charles 
Dolph, John Carey, and John West began the labor of 
clearing and plowing lands in the neighborhood of Buck- 
town or the Corners^ as this place was long called after 
the first foot-path opened from Blakeley to the Roaring 
Brook crossed the Wyoming road at Allsworth' s. 

Edward Lunnon, Isaac Dolph, James Brown, Phili]) 
Swartz and Levi De Puy, purchased land of the State be- 
tween 1799-1805 and located in this portion of Providence 
Township. 

The old tavern, long since vanish (^dwith its round, 
swinging sign and low bar-room, one corner of which, 
fortified with long pine-pickets, extending from the bar 
to the very ceiling, in times of yore, was owned success- 
ively by Wm. Allsworth, Philip Swartz, Isaac Dolph, 
Henry W. Drinker, and Samuel De Puy, before its- 
destruction by fire, a number of years ago. 

The external aspect of Dunmore, somber in appearance 
and tardy in its growth, with a clearing here and there 
occupied by men superior to fear or adversity, promised 
so much by its agricultural expectations in 1813, that Dr. 
Orlo Hamlin with his young wife, was induced to settle 
a mile north of Allsworth. He was the first physician 
and surgeon locating in Providence. This locality, fresh 
with hygiene from the forest, offered so little compensa- 
tion to a profession without need or appreciation among 
the hardy woodmen, that the doctor the next year 
removed to Salem, Wayne County, Pennsylvania. 

The population of Dunmore and Blakeley, doubling in 
numbers and increasing in wealth, warranted Stephen 
Tripp in erecting a saw and grist mill in 1820, on the 
Roaring Brook half a mile south of the village, the 
debris of whose walls, forgotten by the hand that reared 



.-f--^. 



"■^ -vii^" ■> 





JOHN B. SMITH 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 211 

them, are seen at No. Six, favoivd with no thought of theii 
former value to tlie connnuuity. 

A store was opened at the Corners in 1820 under tlie 
auspices of the Drinker Turnpike ; but the village, consist- 
ing of but four houses, had but a negative existence until 
the Pennsylvania Coal Company, in 1847-8, turned the 
sterile pasture-fields around it into a town liberal in 
the extent of its territory and diversified by every variety 
of life. 

The immense machine-sliops of this company, concen 
trating and fostering a vast amount of superior mechani 
€al skill, are located at No. Six, and serve to give Dunmore 
additional note and character as a business village. In 
fact, Dunmore can congratulate itself not so much upon 
the internal wealth of its hills, as upon the vigor of the 
men who furrowed them out, and thus encouraged a town 
at this time deriving its daily inspirations wholly fi-oni tliis 
source. While Gen. John Ewen, President of the Penn- 
sylvania Coal Company, especially looks after its affairs in 
New York with a zeal assuring his courage and fidt^ity, 
t!ie general superintendence of the entire works in Penn- 
sylvania has been exercised by John B. Smitli, ot\ Dun- 
more, through an administratioa of nearly twenty years, 
ill a manner so discreet, popular, and yet withal so modest, 
as jointly to advance the interests of the comjjany, impart 
strength of development to Pittston, Dunmore, and Haw- 
ley, and change the circumstances and fortunes of a large 
class of men employed along the line of tlie road, who 
looked and trusted to industry for reward. 

Dunmoi'e is now an incorporated borough, is connected 
with ScrantoiK Hyde Park, and Providence by a street- 
railroad, and enjoys an aggregate population of about 
five thousand souls. 

IIISTOIIY OF SCKANTOTS^. 

Nay-aug^ or Roaring Brook, linked together by suc- 
cessive rapids and falls for many miles, emergens from the 



212 



HISTORV OK THE 



water-shedding crest separating the Delaware from the 
Susquehanna, and forms the noisiest tributaiy of the 
Lackawanna, whicli it enters at Scranton, one mile beloA\ 
the ancient village of Capoose. The woodland along the 
brook, unbroken on its gorgeous surface save by the 
achievements of tlie beaver, whose dams and villages 
deepened many a curve, had no fixed tenantry but beasts 
of prey until 1788. 




lAI ALO FA 



Across the Lackawanna, the skin- clad savages had 
vanished from their wigwams with a sigh, leaving theii 
fertile meadows to be tilled by men efficient in industry, 
yet indifferent to fear, who used the jungle now marked 
by Scranton, to return the visits of the wolf and the bear 
coming often to them unannounced. Although the great 
war-path from the Indian villages on the Delaware to tlie 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 213 

tribes strolling over Wyoming, intelligence of Avliicli 
had been early gained of the wandering bowmen, entered 
Capoose at the eddy affording niooiage for the warrior's 
canoe, no one looked upon the tamarack swamp, now hid 
in the interior of Scranton, as suitable for a dwelling-place, 
while the richer lands west of the Lackawanna, more 
easily cared for, invited occupancy and tillage. 

Philip Abbott was the first settler in "Deep Hollow," 
as this place was designated from 1788 until 1798, when it 
took the name of Slocum Holloic. AVhile the month of 
May charmed the glen with its foliage^ and fragrance, Mr. 
Abbott marked out his clearing. On a ledge of rocks, 
washed by the brook whose w^aters it overlooked, near 
where stands the old Slocum House, rose from the up- 
rolled logs the first cabin in the Hollow\ It was simply 
a log hut or pen covered with boughs, formed but a single 
loom, occupied in great part by a huge iire-place four or 
live feet in width and as many in depth, filhnl in the long 
evenings of Avinter Avith great sticks of Avood before a 
back-log, which furnished both light and warmth to the 
liardy inmates. Philip was a native of Connecticut, had 
(^migrated to AYyoraing Valley w^ith the Yankees before 
the Revolution, owned propert}^ under the Connecticut 
title, Avhich he transferred to his brother James, both of 
whom were expelled by the Tories and Indians in 1778. 

The settlers in Providence Township in 1788 were lim- 
ited in numbers, yet their necessities sometimes pressing, 
found expression in the settlement of Deep Hollow. Corn 
and rye raised in the valley, had to be carried twenty 
miles to mill in Wyoming Valley, or half cracked by the 
pestle and mortar, and eaten almost whole. The wants of 
the inhabitants, multiplying gradually by the devel- 
opment of the settlement, and other causes wonderfully 
productive here in the wild woods, suggested to the prac- 
tical mind of Mr. Abbott the erection of a grist-mill upon 
the Roaring Brook. Its waters were ample in volume and 
power ; a dam easy of construction along its rocky 



214 HISTOKT OF TIIK 

grottoes. The Lackawanna, spanned by no bridge, could 
generally be forded during the summer months, unless 
swollen by rains ; in winter an ice-bridge favored com- 
munication with the farmers living across the stream. 

The construction of the mill was marked by strong sim- 
plicity. One millstone wrought from tlie granite of an 
adjoining ledge, slightly elevated by an iron spindle, 
revolved upon its nether stone as rudely and firmly ad- 
justed upon a rock. A belt cut from skin, half wrapped 
on the drum of the water-wheel, passing over the spin- 
dle with a twist, formed the running gear of a mill ful- 
filling the expectations of its projector, and the hopes 
of those encouraging its erection. The mill building, 
upheld by saplings firmly placed in the earth, was roofed 
and sided by slabs hewn from trees and aflixed by wooden 
pins and withes. Nails comprised no part of its con- 
struction, nor did tlie sound of the mallet and chisel 
take part in the triumph of its completion. No por- 
tion of the mill surpassed its bolt in novelty. A large 
deer-sJcin, well tanned and stretched upon poles, perfora- 
ted sieve-like with holes, made partial separation of tln^ 
flour from the coarser bran. The strong arm of the millt^r 
or the customer worked the bolt. An old gentleman, now 
deceased, informed the writer many years ago, that when 
he was a mere lad "he often went to Abbott's mill wit'i 
his father, and that while the coin was being ground 
the old man and the miller got jolly on whisky punches 
in the house, while he was compelled to stay in the mill 
to shake the meal through tlie bolt." So primitive and 
unique was the construction of this corn-cracker, without 
tools or machinery, that it simply broke the kernels of 
corn into a samp-meal, which made a kind of food very 
popular in the earlier history of the valley. 

Tlie grist-mill, maintainins; and even increasing its im- 
portance among the ^^eomanry scattered along the river, 
needed additional capital and labor to arrange and enlarge 
its capacity. These requirements came with James Abbott, 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 215 

in October of this year, and with Reuben Taylor in the 
spring of 1789, both of whom, with Philip Abbott, became 
• ■qnal partners in the mill. Mr. Taylor built a double log- 
liouse on the bank of the brook, below the cabin of 
Abbott, which was the second dwelling erected in the 
Hollow. Owing to the want of glass, its high, small win- 
dows, like all the cabins of the frontierman, gave place 
to skins from the forests. Doors, beds, and blankets, and 
sometimes clothes, were made from the same rich untanned 
material. The forest trees in the forks of the two streams, 
yielding to the united assaults of ax and firebrand, opened 
a strip of land for the reception of wheat and corn, bring- 
ing forth its maiden crop in 1789. John Howe and his 
unmarried brother Seth, animated by the liope that inde- 
pendence would come from a life of honesty and labor, 
purchased the rights and good-will of the former owners, 
;ind moved into the thatched dwelling vacated by Mr. 
'J'aylor. On the uplands known throughout the valley 
as the ''Uncle Joe Grifhn farm,'' Mr. Taylor, after rescu- 
ing a few acres from tlie woodlands, disposed of his place 
for a trifle because of its seeming worthlessness. 

Tlie first saw-mill built in Providence Township was 
planned on Stafford Meadow Bi-ook, half a mile below 
Scranton, in 1790, by Caj^t. John Staflbrd, from whom the 
stream derived its name. 

While the farmers living around Capoose enjoyed the 
prosperity and rustic comforts they themselves had created, 
little or no progress toward enlarging the settlement at the 
Hollow had been made. No building of a public charac- 
ter, neither school nor a meeting-house had yet been fos- 
tered within the limits of Capoose, Providence, or the 
Hollow. The Lackawanna led on its way, unvexed by 
dam or bridge. In 1796, Joseph Fellows, Sen., a man of 
great resolution and intelligence, who had just gained a 
residence on the Hyde Park hill-side, aided by the farm- 
ers of Capoose, placed a bridge across the river, with a 
single span. The plank used upon it was the first pro- 



216 HISTORY OF THE 

diiction of Stafford's mill. It was located on the flats, 
where the slackened waters are still crossed by the 
throng. 

That part of the certified Township of Providence 
now occupied by Hyde Park, originally reserved by 
tJie Susquehanna Company for religious and school pur- 
poses, was settled in 1794, by William Bishop, a Baptist 
clergyman of some eccentricity of character, whose log- 
quarters, fixed on the parsonage lot overlooking Capoose, 
in its rural simplicity stood where now stands Judge 
Mej-rifield's dwelling. Most of the land about the central 
portion of this thrifty village was cleared by the Dolphs. 
In 1795, Aaron Dolph rolled up his small log-house upon 
the present site of the Hyde Park hotel ; his brother 
Jonathan then chopped and logged off' the Washburn 
and Knapp farm, while the lands at Fellows Corner were 
brought to light and culture by Moses Dolph. The earli- 
est house of entertainment or tavern in Hyde Park was 
opened and kept by Jonathan Dolph. In 1810, Philij) 
Heermans, influenced by the community, which required 
a public point at which to hold town meetings and enjoy 
the largest liberty of franchise, turned his house into a 
tavern., where the spirit of frolic sometimes mingled with 
the more sober duties of the assemblage. Elections have 
been held at this place ever since. On the cold soil and 
bleak hill north of Dunmore, Charles Dolph, anothei- 
brother, moved into the forest, where lie sowed and 
reaped in due season. 

The joint and double advantage of water-power and 
timber everywhere found along the Roaring Brook from 
its mouth up to its head-springs amidst the evergreens of 
the Pocono, could neither be overlooked nor resisted by 
Ebenezer and Benjamin Slocum, who purchased of the 
Howes, in July, 1798, the undivided land of Slocum Hol- 
low. The father of the Slocums was Ebenezer Slocum, 
Sen. He had emigrated to Wyoming Valley ])revious to 
the massacre, was shot and scalped by the Indians, near 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 217 

Wilkes Barre Fort, in Decembei-, 1778, with Isaac Tripp, 
Sen. 

A domestic tragedy, casting a spirit of melancholy over 
the Lrook-side cabin, hastened and impelled the ti-ansfer 
of the property. Lydia, the eldest born of John Howes, 
depressed by some disappointed visions of girlhood, was 
found dead in her chamber, having hanged herself with a 
garter attached to her bedpost. The effect of this suicide 
^the first in the valley — removed every speculating con- 
sidei-ation or cavil from a trade which placed the mill and 
the wild acres around it into the hands of the Slocums. 

Benjamin was a single man ; he afterward married Miss 
Phebe La Fronse. Ebenezer married a daughter of Dr. 
Joseph Davis, one of the most eccentric medical men ever 
known in the Lackawanna Valle}^ "ZTe teas not,'''' in the 
language of an octogenarian familiar with his oddities five- 
and-sixty years ago, "a great metaphysical doctor but a 
wonderful sargant doctor." Dr. Davis died in Slocum 
Hollow in 1830, aged 98 years. 

Tliere were now but two houses in the Hollow, and only 
that number of grist-mills from Nanticoke northward to 
the State line. 

The Slocums, young, strong, and ambitious, infused 
new elements into the settlement. They named the place 
Vnionville, but the name, having no descriptive interpre- 
tation or bearing to the glen, readily gave way to that of 
Slocum' s Hollow, or Slocum Hollow. In 1799, after the 
mill, necessarily rugged in its interior and external fea- 
tures, had been improved, enlarged, and a distillery added 
thereto, Ebenezer Slocum and his partner, James Duwaiii, 
l)uilt a saw-mill a little above the grist-mill. A sniitli 
shop, built from faultless logs, rose from the mnrgin of the 
creek, and the sound of the anvil, carried afar, blended 
Joyfully with the song of the noisy water. Two or three 
additional houses, built for the workmen, the saw and the 
grist mill, one cooper shop, with the smith shop and the 
distillery, formed the total village of Slocum Hollow or 



218 HISTOKY OF THE 

Scranton in 1800. Both dams were swept away by tlie 
spring freshet of this year, exhausting the coui-age of Mi". 
Duwain, who forthwith retired from partnership ; Benja- 
min Slocum taking his place. 

The interests of the community suffered but littk% as 
the dams were promptly built by the aid of a bee^ which 
called together every farmer in the township. The grist- 
mill was patronized far and near. Farmers twenty miles 
away sometimes sought the mill with their grists, and 
when the work was pressing on the farm at home, the}' 
tarried and toiled while the wife, heroic and devoted, went 
to mill on horseback, with no equipage grander than th^ 
pillion. 

The Pittston division of the valley owes no more kind 
remembrance to Dr. Wm. Hooker Smith for his vigorous 
efforts to extract iron from its hills, than the Scranton por- 
tion of it concedes to the elder Slocum brothers for the 
erection of the original iron -forge in the Hollow in 1800. 
Low down on the bank of the brook, beside the waterfall 
and yet above the flood, grew up the forge and trip-ham- 
mer, which, fed with ore gathered from gullies, brought 
forth the molten product in abundance. 

The old landmark of» Slocum Hollow, cherished with 
pride by the old settler, is the old "Slocum House" yet 
standing by the creek, with its stone basement and broad 
long stoop, as proudly as in days of yore. It is the oldest 
structure in Scranton, was built in the fall of 1805 by 
Ebenezer Slocum, well preserved even to its capacious 
hearth where the fagot blazed and reflected back the 
light of smiling faces half a century ago, where the jest 
and the song went around and the old hall rang to the 
very roof. The second. /7Ycw^e house in the Hollow was 
built by Benjamin Slocum. Facing the brook, with its 
low porch extending along its entire front, it offered an 
admirable view of the forge and the sturdy artisans around 
it. With all these improvements along a narrow strip of 
clearing, Slocum Hollow was yet comparatively a wilder- 



LACKAWAI^NA VALLKV. 



219 



ness. Deer, bear, and even pantli<'is were hunted and 
killed here as late as 1816. Lands now occnpied by th(.' 
massive Round House and the l)ei)()ts of the Delaware, 
Lackwanna, and Western Railroad, were cleared of the 
fallen tree and sown with wheat in ISl'u Six years 
previous, a chopping had been made where Lackawanna 
Avenue runs, but the wolves issuing from their fastnesses 
in the tamarack jungle adjoining, ])revented the Slocums 
from keeping sheep for their mucli-needed wool. 




SLOCUM HOUSE. 



Elislia Hitchcock, a young mill- wright from New Hamp- 
shire, made his way into Slocum Hollow in 1809. He 
repaired the mill, married Ruth the daughter of Benjamin 
Slocum in 1811, an excellent lady who still survives him. 
Mr. Hitchcock was an honest man, who never wronged 
his fellow, and beloved by all for his exemplary qualities ; 
he died a few years since. 

A second still was put into operation in 1811. The 
tranquil succession of abundant liarvests throughout 
Capoose — the absence of an approachable market for the 
grain, thrashed out by the flail— the frequent calls for 
whisky coming from Easton, Paupack, Bethany, Mon- 



220 HISTORY OF THK 

trose, and the high banks of Berwick, abating none of its 
value and inspirations as a commercial agent, served to 
welcome the accession of the new still as a publio 'bene- 
faction worth}' of the unhesitated and active patronage 
and favor accorded to it by every member of society. 

Luzerne County, as now bounded, had but two post- 
offices in 1810— Wilkes Barre and Kingston. In 1811 
four were established, viz. : at Pittston, Nescopeck, Abing- 
ton, and Providence. The Providence office was located 
in Slocum Hollow, and Benj. Slocum appointed post- 
master. The inhabitants of the valley working hard for 
coarse food and rustic homespun, sometimes had leisure 
to visit and reflect, but few books or papers to peruse. 
Scattered through Blakeley or over the mountain, they 
enjoyed no mail facilities other than those offered by this 
office, until the establishment of another one in Blakeley 
in 1824. The Slocum Hollow office was removed to 
Providence in this year, and John Vaughn appointed 
postmaster. The same year William Merrifield was com- 
missioned postmaster of a new office established at 
Hyde Park. The mail was carried once a week on horse- 
back from Easton to Bethany by Zephaniah Knapp, Esq. , 
xia Wilkes Barre and Providence ; the entire mail 
matter for the Lackawanna settlements bore no compari- 
son, in quantity, to the amount that very many business 
firms in the same vicinity are now daily the recipients of. 

Frances Slocum, who was taken captive by the Indians 
in Wyoming Valley, in 1778, and whose subsequent his- 
tory has been made familiar by Dr. Peck and Miner, was 
a sister of Ebenezer and Benjamin, When she was cauglit 
up in the arms of the savage that had just scalped a lad 
with the knife he was grinding at the door, a painted war- 
rior rushed into the house of Jonathan Slocum "and took 
up Ebenezer Slocum, a little boy. The mother stepped 
up to the savage, and reaching for the child, said : ' He 
can do you no good ; see, he is lame.' With a grim smile, 
giving up the boy, he took Frances, her daughter, aged 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 221 

about five years, gently in liis arms, and seizing the 
younger Kinsley by the hand, hurried away to the moun- 
tains.'"^ His release from the fickle savage, through the 
adroitness of his mother, was no more providential than 
his escape from as horrible a death in 1808. Losing his 
foothold while clearing the mill-race of drift-wood, he fell, 
and was carried by the rushing impulse of the current 
down the stream between the buckets of the water-wheel 
before he was rescued by his ftiithful negro. Mr. Slo- 
cum's weight exceeded two hundred, and yet, through this 
vise-like space, measuring scant six inches, he was forced 
with so little injury that he resumed his wonted labor 
within a week ! Of such material, plastic yet withe-like, 
was made the men who carved and nursed the valley in 
its infancy. 

In the manufacture of iron, no advantage was taken of 
the coal ramparts by the creek, because no knowledge of 
its use for this purpose had reached the public mind until 
1886. Charcoal, made in the turf-clad ])its by tlie wood- 
side, everywhere at the furnaces asserted its prerogative 
as the heating agent. In fa(;t, the timber about Scrantou 
in the eailier part of the century was swept away, more 
especially to supply the charcoal demand of Slocum's 
forge, than for any remunerative gain its soil promised 
to the cultivators of the country. 

Iron forges and furnaces having sprung up in various 
sections of country where Slocum Hollow iron, famous for 
its superior texture, had been favorably know^n and used ; 
the dilapidated state of the works in use for six-and- 
twenty years ; the cost of transporting ore over miles of 
roads sometimes rendered impassable by fallen trees or 
deepened ruts ; all contributed to extinguish the forge-fire. 
The last iron was made by the Slocums in June, 1826 : 
the last whisky distilled a few months later. Up to this 
time these primitive iron- works were, in the hands of 

'Miner's History, p. 247 



222 HISTOUY OF THE 

these unobtrusive men, yielding tlieir conquests and dif- 
fusing a spirit of enterprise amidst accumulative diffi- 
culties, in a valley having no outlet by railroad, ^o 
navigable route to the sea other than shallow waters long 
skimmed by the Indian's canoe. 

Ebenezer retired from business in 1828 ; in 1832, full of 
years, peaceful, trusting, he went to his grave, as a shock 
of corn fully ripe cometh in, in its season. 

Joseph and Samuel Slocum, full of youthful enthusi- 
asm, began to carry on farming and mill interests with the 
same spirit of earnestness distinguishing the elder Slocums. 

The obliteration of the still and forge abridged the im- 
portance and checked the growth of the village. Three 
roads, or rather two, cut through the woods, too narrow 
for wagons to pass each other only in places prepared for 
turn-outs, diverged from the Hollow : one from Alls- 
worth's, at Dunmore, led to Fellows' Corners; while the 
other crossed the swamp, along what is now Wyoming 
Avenue, on fallen logs, and found its way by Griffin's 
Corners to the acknowledged political center of the valley 
— Razorville village. Upper and Lower Providence, Ab- 
ington, Blakeley, Greenfield, Scott, and Drinker's Beech, 
offering choice wild lands to all seeking a competency by 
a life of frugal industry, became the home of men whose 
hardihood, hospitality, and stanch virtues, carried culti- 
vation and thrift into the borders of the forest, while Slo- 
cum Hollow, strangely intermingled with rock and morass, 
offered little to the husbandman, and nothing to the new- 
comer. 

An effort was made in 1817 to improve the navigation 
of the Lackawanna, and a company incorporated at the 
time for this purpose ; nothing more was done. In 1819, 
the late Henry W. Drinker — than whom no man surpassed 
in readiness to aid the needy pioneer or develop the 
resources of the country — explored the mountains and 
valleys from the Susquehanna at Pittston to the Dela- 
ware Water Gap, with a view of connecting the two 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 223 

points by a i-ailroad to be operated over the Leliigh Moun- 
tain by hydraulic power achieved from the waters of 
Tobyhanna and tlie Lehigh. 

While the Slocum Hollow settlement, being on the line 
of the proposed road, was expected to acquire some in- 
creased activity mutually advantageous, the interests of 
Drinker's Beech, watched carefully by Mr. Drinker, were 
more especially aimed at by the projectors of the road. 
A charter was granted in March, 1826 ; simultaneously a 
charter was obtained by Wm. Meredith, for a railroad to 
run up the Lackawanna to the State line from Providence 
village. Both were projected upon the plan of inclined 
planes. 

The four pioneers obtaining lailroad charters in the 
Lackawanna Valley were Wm. and Maurice Wurts, Henry 
W. Drinker, and Wm. Meredith. The first two gentlemen 
banded the mountain' s brow with the flat rail ; the last, 
owing to needless antipathies wiiich aroused every im- 
pulse of selfishness, and embittered even the calm hour of 
triumph with its remembrance, were not able to infuse 
into charters easily obtained, advantage to themselves or 
to the places they sought to enrich and develop. These 
men were powerful in the day of first railroads ; polished, 
opulent, and educated, and had there been united and 
harmonious action among them, the valley would hardly 
have been so reluctant in yielding the wherewithal to 
gladden the firesides of the land. Drinker, averse to a 
sti-ife fatal to his cherished projects, shared none of the 
prejudices against the men who had rendered practicable 
an eastern outlet from the valley. 

The North Branch Canal, fed by the idle waters of the 
Lackawanna, was begun in Pittston in 1828 by the State, 
and looked to as the great commercial avenue to the sea. 
The citizens of old Providence Township, restrained by 
the mountain's wall from all hope of public intercourse 
with Philadelphia or New York by a continuous railroad, 
withal too modest to expect a canal at the expense of the 



224 HISTORY OF THE 

State, asked the Legislature, having but a negative repre- 
sentation from the valley, to build ^''W\q feeder of this 
canal, or some other improvement up the valley as far as 
would be thought of service to our citizens and the 
Commonwealth. ' ' 

This scheme naturally excited the public mind, because 
its prosecution under any circumstances would reach out 
benefits to every husbandman jealous of his own rights, 
yet taught by invidious men to distrust the power of 
"incorporated companies." ^ 

The coal-clad slopes enjoyed repose. The cesarean 
drill had not yet fallen into the strong arms of the skillful 
miner. Up in the Carbondale glen, under the shelter of a 
ledge of rocks forming the western bank of the Lacka- 
wanna, a few hundred tons of surface coal had been mined 
by the Wurts brothers as an experimental measure. Thf- 
operations of these weather-beaten, persecuted, yet hope- 
ful men, were not recognized by the inhabitants of th<^ 
lower townships as of any practical utilit}/ to any one 
but the miners themselves. Wood Avas abundant, and 
every hill-side offered fuel to the woodman who chose tc^ 
gather it without cost. Coal had neither domestic value 
nor sale at home ; no market abroad. A brighter aspect at 
length struggled its way into the valley, and ^the solitude 
of Slocum Hollow was gone. 

" About 1836," says Mr. Joseph J. Albright, in a note 
to the writer, "at the suggestion of Geo. M. HoUenback 
I made the trip to Slocum Hollow for the purpose of 
examining the iron ore, coal, &c., with a view of pur- 
chasing from Alva Heermans the property (now 
Scranton) for $10 per acre. I took a box of the iron ore 
on top of a stage to Northampton County, where I was 
engaged in the manufacture of iron, and I contend that I 
shook the first tree, if I failed to gather its fruit. I believe 
the box of ore thus transported was the means of attract- 

' See " Wilkes Barre Advocate," December 9, 183S 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 227 

ing the attention of Messrs. Henry, Scranton, &c., to this 
tract. These facts are known and recognized by S. T. 
Scranton ; had I been successful in persuading Dr. 
Philip Walter and others to join me in its purchase, I 
might have gathered ample reward." 

Drinker s route for a railroad from the Delaware to the 
Susquehanna, surveyed in 1831 by Maj. Beach, awakened 
neither interest nor inquiry among the yeomanry having 
scarcely means to meet the yearly taxes or support families 
generally large and needy, and yet, strange as it may 
appear, the initial impulse toward a village at Slocum 
Hollow came from the friends of this project, William 
Henry,^ one of the original commissioners named in the 
charter, was especially enthusiastic and active in his 
effoi'ts to build up a town at this point for the purpose of 
advancing the interests of this unattractive; project. His 
knowledge of the country was too thorougli and general 

'A tradition in the "Ilcnry" family exists, wliere the Indian chaiacter 
appears in a more amiable light than that exhibited on the Western plains. "My 
grandfather.' writes William Henry in a note to the aullior, " William Henry, 
i.nte of Lanoa.^ter. Po.. in 1765 was an officer serving under General Washington, 
;it General Braddock's defeat near Fort Pitt ; he there saw a well-made, athletic 
Indian in jeopardy of his life, and by extraordinary effort and means, saved him ; 
ill the recognition, names were exchanged, and a friendship established : parting 
soon after they never met afterward, and nothing was known of the Indian until 
the commencement of the Revolution in 17 7-1, when the rescued man called and 
made the acquaintance of my father, at Ciiristiau Spring, Northampton County, as 
the Chief Eillbuck. whose life, he stated, was saved by Maj. Henry, relating all 
the incidents attending the disastrous battle-field, remarking that while ordinarily 
he did not expect to live many more years, but that ' Indian never forgets,' his 
own people and family would know how to pay a debt of irratitude. 

"In the year 1794 my father and other gentlemen were commissioned by the 
U. S. Government to locate a quantity of lands donated to the ' Society for 
propagating the Uospel among the Heathen' in what then was Indian country 
and a wilderness ; fortunately <^e;re resided the descendants of Chief Killbuck. 
The surveying party not knowing this, however, were the grateful recipients of 
bear's meat, venison, and other game, through the instrumentality of the Chief 
' White Eye,' who sulisequently made himself known as the leading successor 
of the Sachem Killbuck and his gratitude toward the son, whose father saved the 
life of his chief; about three months were occupied in the woods on the banks of 
the Muskingum in safety. A fuller detail and historical account, agreeing in 
evary particular with the above, was given by the Indian family, now in Kansas, 
to Col. Alexander, late the editor of a paper at Pittston. then resident in Kansas ; 



228 HISTORY OK the 

to be without its stimulating iutiuence, and yet tliis 
acquaintance of the mineralogical cliaracter of the westerji 
terminus of the route only enabled him to give decided 
expression to views neither adopted nor accepted by his 
friends. 

Messrs. Drinker and Henry, undismayed by the cold, 
solemn avowal of the inhabitants occupying the valleys 
of the Delaware and the Susquehanna, that no such road 
was possible or necessary to their social condition, taking 
advantage of the speculative wave of 1836, called the 
friends of the road to Easton at this time to devise a prac- 
tical plan of action. Repeated exertions in this direction 
had hitherto yielded a measure of ridicule not calculated 
to inspire great hopes of success. At this meeting, pro- 
longed for days, Mr. Henry assnred the members of the 
board that if the old furnace of Slocum' s at the Hollow 
could be reanimated and sustained a few years, a village 
would spring up between the unguarded passes of the 
Moosic, calling for means of communication with the sea- 
board less inhospitable and tardy than the loitering stage- 
coach. This novel plan to achieve success for the road, 
although urged with ability and candor, met the approval 
of but a single man. This was Edward Armstrong, a 
gentleman of great benevolence and courtesy, living on 
the Hudson. In the acquisition of land in the Lackawanna 
Valley, or the erection of furnaces and forges upon it, he 
avowed himself ready to share with Mr. Henry any re- 

by him a friendly message from them was received in remembrance of their and 
our fathers ; conchisively to show that an 'Indian does not forget.' 

" The appellation of ' Henry ' is at this day the middle name of every member 
of the family, to wit: — 

Moses Henry Killbuck. 

Joseph " " 

William " 

Josephine " " 

Sarah " " 

John " " 

Rachel " " 

" These are all well-known persons in the West to the ' Moravian Missionaries.' " 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 229 

sponsibilit3\ profit, or risk. During the spring and sum- 
mer of 1839, Mr. Henrj^ examined every rod of ground 
along the river from Pittston to CobV s Gap to ascertain 
the most judicious location for the works. 

Under the wall of rock, cut in twain by the dash of the 
Nay-aug, a quarter of a mile above its mouth, favoring 
by its altitude, the erection and feeding of a stack, a place 
was well chosen. It was but a few rods above the debris 
of Slocum's forge, and like that earlier affair enjoyed 
within a stone's throw every essential material for its con- 
struction and working. 

After the decease of Mr. Slocuni, the forge grounds 
changing hands repeatedly for a mere nominal consider- 
ation, had fallen into possession of William Merrifield, 
Zeno Albro, and William Ricketson of Hyde Park, and had 
relapsed into common pasturage. Mr. J. J. Albright was 
offered 500 aci-es of the Scranton lands for $5,000 upon a 
long credit in 1836 ; tor auch land that figure was consider- 
ed too high at that time. 

In March, 1840, Messrs. Henry and Armstrong pur- 
cliased 503 acres for $8,000, or about $16 per acre. The 
fairest farm in the valley, under-veined with coal, had no 
opportunity of refusing the same surprising equivalent. 
Mr. Henry gave a draft at thirty days on Mr. Armstrong, 
in whom the title was to vest ; before its maturity, death 
came, to Mr. Armstrong, almost unawares. He had im- 
bued the enterprise, by his manly co-operation, with no 
vague friendship or faith, and his death, at this time, was 
regarded as especially disastrous to the interests of Slo- 
cum Hollow. His administrators, looking to nothing but 
a quick settlement of the estate, requested him to forfeit 
the contract without question or hesitancy. Thus baffled 
ill a quarter little anticipated, Mr. Henr}- asked and ob- 
tained thirty days' grace upon the non-accepted draft, 
hoping in the interim to find another shrewd capitalist 
able to advance the purchase-money and willing to share 
in the affiurs of the contemplated furnace. The late 



230 IIISTOKY OF THE 

lamented Colonel Geo. W. Scranton and Selden T. Scran- 
ton, both of New Jersey, interested by the earnest and 
enthusiastic representations of Mr. Henry regaiding the 
vast and varied resources of the Lackawanna Valley, of 
which no knowledge had reached them before, proposed 
to add Mr. Sanfovd Grant, of Belvidere, to a party, and 
visit Slocum Hollow. 

The journey from Belvidere to the present site of Scran- 
ton took one day and a half hard driving, and was well 
calculated to test the self-reliance and vigor of the inex- 
perienced mountaineer. The Drinker Turnpike, stretch- 
ing its weary length over Pocono Mountain and morass, 
enlivened here and there by the arrowy trout-brook or 
the start of the fawn, brought the party on the 19th 
of August, 1840, to the half-opened thicket growing over 
the tract where now Mr. Archbald's residence is seen. 
Securing their horses under the shade of a tree, the party, 
amazed at the simple wildness of a country where green 
acres were looked for in vain, moved down the bank 
of Roaring Brook to a body of coal whose black edge 
showed the fury of the stream when sudden rains or 
thaws raised its waters along the narrow channel. None 
of the party except Mr. Henry had ever seen a coal-bed 
before. Assisted by a pick, used and concealed by him 
weeks before, pieces of coal and iron ore were exhumed 
for the inspection of the party about to turn the minerals, 
sparkling amid the shrubs and wild tiowers, to some more 
practical account. The obvious advantages of location, 
uniting water-power with prospective Avealth, were exam- 
ined for half a day without seeing or being seen by a 
single person. 

The village of Slocum Hollow, in 1840, yielded the palm 
to the surrounding ones. The Slocum house and its hum- 
ble barn, three small wooden houses, and one stone 
dwelling, outliving the days of the forge, stood above its 
debris ; a grist-mill, owned by Barton Mott, a seven-by- 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 231 

nine school- house squatting on the ledge, and a clattering 
saw-mill, made up the village twenty-nine years ago. 

The exterior features of the Slocura property were any 
thing but attractive, yet, after some question and hesi- 
tancy, it was purchased at the price already stipulated. 
Lackawanna Valley achieved its thrift and fame from this 
comparative!}^ trifling purchase of but yesterday, and 
Scranton dates its incipient inspirations toward acquiring 
for itself a place and a name from August, 1840. 

The company, consisting of Colonel George W. and Sel- 
den T. Scranton, Sanford Grant, William Henry, and 
Philip H. Mattes, organizing under the lirm of Scrantons, 
Grant & Co., began forthwith the construction of a fur- 
nace, under the superintend ency of Mr. Henry, whose 
family immediately removed from Stroudsburg to Hyde 
Park. 

Xone of the older portion of the community can forget 
the thriftless appearance of the four villages in Providence 
Township, exhibiting no reluctant spirit of rivalry. Hyde 
Paik contained but a single store, Avhere the post-office 
found ample quarters in a single pigeon hole; a small 
Christian meeting-house standing by the road-side, and six 
or eight scattered dwellings along the single roadway ; 
neither physician, lawyer, nor miner, and but a single min- 
ister, without a church of his own, resided within its pre- 
cincts. Providence, known far and wide by the sobriquet 
of Razorcille, acknowledged as the seat of government 
for the county, had a dozen houses, two stores and a 
post-office, a grist-mill and a bridge, an ax factory, three 
doctors, no minister, and it did a snug business in the way 
of horse-racing on Sunday, and miscellaneous traffic with 
the round-about country during the week. Dunmore was 
the equiil of Slocum Hollow in the number of its dilapi- 
dated tenements, sheltering as many families. Such were 
ihe towns that gave a negative welcome to the innovations 
of the unknown '* Jersey ites," as they were termed, in 



232 HISTORY OF THE 

half derision, by people hearing of their search and pur- 
chase around Capoose. 

New men naturally introduced new names. When the 
white man first strayed into the valley, no other name 
than Capoose — an Indian signification of endearment — was 
heard until the connection of the Slocums with the rough 
liollow, in 1798, opening land and trade, fixed the appel- 
lation of Slocum Hollow. The memorable days of " hard 
cider" substituted the name of Harrison for that of Slo- 
cum Hollow. The Scrantons, not without ambition to 
popularize a name never dishonored, assented to the ex- 
change of Harrison for Scrantonia. With the growth and 
triumphs of the iron-works, the brief vowels ia were 
erased, leaving plain Scranton in possession of the field. 
This name thus serves to perpetuate the memories of 
the founders of the town, but would not the aboriginal 
Capoose or the Indian names for their streams, Nay-aug or 
Lar-har-har-nar, have been more musical and appropriate % 

The first day' s work on the Harrison furnace was done 
September 11, 1840, by Mr. Simeon Ward. During the 
fall and winter months satisfactory progress attended it. 
A small wooden building, afterward enlarged for "Kres- 
ler's Hotel," was erected by W. W. Manness, who is yet 
in the employ of the company, and jointly occupied as an 
office, store, and dwelling. It was afterward torn down 
to make room for the blast-furnace engine-house. As the 
spring of 1841 opened, tenant-houses went up, and work 
went forward without cessation or abatement. Mr. Grant 
became a resident of Harrison, with his family, and for 
many years, when the tide was low, conducted the man- 
agement of the store with such urbanity and studied 
regard for the interests of all, that he acquired considera- 
tion and popularity among the yeomanry of the county. 

The interests of P. H. Mattes were represented by his 
son, Charles F. Mattes, w^io, from the time the furnace was 
put in successful blast, has been efficiently engaged at the 
head of one of the more important departments. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 233 

The liberal doctrines of Methodism, itinerated and 
•diflfiised in the valley as early as 1786, were rarely prac- 
ticed, and had but a feeble recognition in any way until 
1793. "At this time," writes the venerable Rev. Dr. 
Peck, " William Colbert, a pioneer preacher, visited 
Capouse, and preached to a few people at Brother Howe' s, 
and lodged at Joseph Waller's. Howe lived in Slocum 
Hollow, and Waller on the main road in or near what is 
now Hyde Park. In 1798 Daniel Taylor's, below Hyde 
Park, was a preaching place. For years subsequently 
the pleaching was at Preserved Taylor's, who lived on 
the hill -side in Hyde Park, near the old Tripp place. 
When Mr. Taylor removed, the preaching was taken to 
Razorville, now Providence, and the preachers were 
entertained by Elisha Potter, Esq., whose wife was a very 
exemplary member of the church. Up to this period, 
preaching was held in private houses." School-houses, 
moderate in capacity, served for religious purposes until 
June, 1841, when a subscription was raised for the 
purpose of building a "meeting-house" at some suitable 
place within reach of missionaries and laymen. The great 
bulk of the subscription com.ing from Harrison Iron 
Works, governed the location of the church, which was 
built in 1842, and jointly and harmoniously used as a 
place of worship by Methodists and Presbyterians until the 
latter erected a place of their own. The Methodists have 
enjoyed the pastoral labors of A. H. Schoonniaker, Rev. 
Dr. Peck, B. W. Goram, G. C. Bancroft, J. V. Newell, 
J. A. Wood, N. W. Everett, and Byron D. Sturdevant. 

The Presbyterians, now representing so much of the 
intelligence and Avealth of the Scranton community, had 
no definite organization in Scranton until February, 1842. 
In 1827 missionaries were employed to preach at Slocum 
Hollow and Razorville twelve times a year, generally in 
school-houses and barns, and sometimes under the sheltei 
of a friendly tree. Rev. Cyrus Gildersleeve, John 
Dorrance, and the bold, blunt Thomas P. Hunt, were 



234 HISTORY OF THE 

thus employed alternately. The success attending the 
Methodists in building their church by subscription, ani- 
mated tile fewer Presbyterians to a similar effort in the 
same direction. The pressure of poverty among the 
farmers of the valley, combined with tlie weak condition 
of this denomination, having hut /o7ir members at Har- 
rison, influenced the committee appointed in 184-i to select 
a site for a church, to decide upon Lackawanna, three 
miles below Harrison, as the place best calculated to favor 
the majority of the Presbyterians. The church, built in 
1846, was owned in common by the members at Lacka- 
wanna and Harrison. This latter place was a mere sub- 
ordinate preaching point, and yet cared for so well by the 
young, gifted Rev. N. G. Parks, that in 1848 the Scranton 
portion of this organic body, acquiring influence and inde- 
pendence with the development of the village, sought a 
peaceful separation, and at once asserted its strength by 
the erection of an imposing churcli, costing $30,000, 
capable of seating 800 persons. Since Mr. Park, the 
Rev. J. D. Mitchell, John F. Baker, and the Rev. M. J. 
Hickok, have all creditably ofiiciated within its walls. 
Mr. Hickok, whose purity of mind and blameless life 
endeared him to all, was hopelessly stricken with paralysis 
in the fall of 1867, thus leaving the church without an 
active pastor. 

The spiritual wants of the Catholics in Scranton were 
flrst looked after by the Rev. P. Pendergrast in 1846. A 
small room in a private dwelling served for a gathering 
place until 1848, when a church, 25 by 35, was constructed. 
The constant accession of numbers rendered a larger 
place of worship necessary in 1853-4, under the attention 
of the Rev. Father Moses Whittey. The erection of a 
Catholic church in Providence and another in Dunmore, 
drew somewhat from a congregation yet so numerically 
strong in Scranton, that Father Whittey, well known for 
his calm deportment yet zealous devotion to the interests 
of his church, looking to the future want and welfare of 



I.ACKAWANNA VAI.LKY. 235 

his flock, began in 1864 to build a catluHlral, at an esti- 
mated cost of $100,000. Tlie edifice is built in the Grecian 
style of architecture, 68 by 158 feet, and will seat 2,300 
persons. Few individuals in the valley could have 
turned so powerful an influence to the greater advantage 
of Scranton than has Father \Yhittey done in the erection 
of this edifice. 

The first Baptist church here was built under hopeful 
auspices in 1859 ; in 1863, the Rev. Isaac Bevan, acting 
in concert with those fostering the project, increased his 
claim to public gratitude by the erection of a brick sanc- 
tuary, 50 by 80, at a cost of $40,000. The church numbers 
about 200 communicants. 

St. Luke's Episcopal Church dates back only to 1852. 
Within the next eighteen months, a frame church and 
parsonage were finished and completed at a cost of about 
$4,000. St. Luke's is now so comparatively wealthy and 
popular in Scranton, that a new stone church is being 
erected for a Parish, at a cost of $150,000. This ecclesias- 
tical body, eschewing politics and religious ultraism, has, 
under the ministerial administration of Rev. John Long, 
AV. C. Robinson, and the Rev. A. A. Marple, the inde- 
fatigable, gentlemanly pastor, grown into public favor 
in an especial manner since its original existence here. 

The German Presbyterian Church of Sci'anton Avas dedi- 
cated in 1859 ; the Evangelical Lutheran Zion Church, 
organized in 1860, purchased the First Welsh Baptist 
Church of Scranton in 1863. 

The Liberal Christian Society have a respectable 
organization without enjoying a place of worship of their 
own. 

The German Catholics, looked after by their worthy 
pastor, Rev. P. Nagel, built them a neat edifice in 1866, 
at a cost of $11,000. 

The above-named churches, enumerating only those 
embraced within the old village proper of Scranton, are 
named in the order of their development. 



236 UISTOliY OF THE 

The fact is indeed creditable to the Lackawanna Iron 
and Coal Company, that a great portion of the land occu- 
])ied b}^ these respective places of worship, was gener- 
ously donated by them for this specific object. 

In the Slocuni furnace of 1800, nothing but charcoal 
was used for smelting purposes. Experiments, attended 
with failure and sometimes with derision, were made in 
Pennsylvania between 1837-9, toward the substitution 
of anthracite coal as a melting menstruum in the manu- 
facture of iron, for the more expensive and perishable 
charcoal. The lion Works upon the Lehigh inaugurated 
the change ; the Danville artisans were the next to enlarge 
the province of stone coal. This long-delayed triumph of 
coal, wonderful in the grandeur of its results everywhere, 
governed the design of the new furnace at Harrison. It 
was contemplated fiom the first to use the hall ore found 
adjacent to one of the veins of coal running through the 
whole coal region ; a brief trial proved it too expensive 
to mine. Upon the southeastern slope of the Moosic, 
about three miles from Harrison, a large body of iron ore 
was discovered in the spring of 1841, which with the 
intervening acres of land was purchased, and a railroad 
stretched from the mine to the furnace. 

The erection of miners' houses, the increased cost of 
the iron-works awaiting blast, the unforeseen yet una- 
voidable outlay for lands and railroad unprovided for in 
the original estimate, exhausted the capital, and left from 
the very outset an embarrassing debt. Under such aus- 
pices, little calculated to encourage the enterprise, came 
Col. George W. Scranton into Scranton, as a resident, in the 
fall of 1841. A man of ardent faith, affable and persua- 
sive address, full of honor and probity, whom no difficul- 
ties could discourage, no honors cause him to forget the 
good of the poor man, he was eminently fitted to aid Mr. 
Henry in the superintendence and experimental inaugu- 
lation of the iron-works. 

The first effort to start the furnace, owing to various 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 237 

causes incident to a new, wet, defective stack, appalled 
the projectors with failure. Wood, charcoal, and even 
salt and "brimstone, employed as auxiliaries to intensify 
the heat, brought no fulfillment of hopes or prospect 
of victory. A second eifort led to the same result. The 
furnace was altered. The hot-air ovens Avere multiplied 
and enlarged, the machinery changed, and the practical 
knowledge and services of Mr. John F. Davis secured. 
On the 18th of January, 1842, the furnace was blown in, 
amid mutual applause and congratulation. About two 
and a quarter tons of pig-iron per day was made the first 
month. 

The early trials and failures at the furnace, occupying 
three months of constant struggle, awakened an interest 
among the better class of people of the valley and else- 
where, honorable alike to their intelligence and humanity. 
Many, willing to check any and every advancement toward 
general prosperity, boldly pronounced "tlie tltmg a Jer- 
sey humbug !" as they prayed and predicted it would b(\ 
Even such skepticism, when the molten stream of iron 
issued from the furnace into bars, exciting astonishment 
and pride, vanished into silence ; the people acquiesced 
in the good feeling of the proprietors, whose recompense 
thus far had been only hope deferred. 

In the spring of 1843, additional fire-ovens, with other 
improvements, were added to augment its capacity, whicli 
thus far had yielded iron superior in quality, but deficient 
in quantity. Iron, when manufactured, found no market to 
any extent short of the distant sea-board, reached only by 
two roundabout routes, viz. : the Delaware and Hudson 
Canal, and the North Branch and Tide Water Canal, to 
Havre-de-Grace. In either case, the iron must be trans- 
ported upon heavy wagons from Harrison, fifteen miles to 
Carbondale, then the terminus of the railroad leading to 
Honesdale, or to Port Barnum on the Susquehanna. 

The first year s product was shipped by the latter route 
to New York and Boston, at a time when great commer- 



2o8 HISTORY OF THE 

oial embarrassment perv^aded the conntry, and threatened 
the annihilation of manufacturing interests in every sec- 
tion. Since the commencement of the forge, September 
20, 1840, iron had fallen in value over forty per cent. Its 
demand and price continued to decline. More than this, 
Lackawanna Valley iron had neither name nor character 
in either of these places to carry itself into public estima- 
tion. Thus were men whose fortunes were pledged to 
foster and sustain a great development, greeted in advance 
by restrictions especially baleful and adverse to their suc- 
cess. Meantime, financial obstacles in Harrison increased. 
The credit system was popular in the valley. It attenu- 
ated its dubious length as an equalizing medium among 
the inhabitants unwilling to accord it to the company. 

The darkest period in the history of the partnershij) 
was seen in 1842-3. In a remunerating sense, the iron 
speculation had proved a failure, and left the treasury 
worse than empty. Without character, money, or credit, 
its affairs began to look hopeless. Their notes given to 
individuals in lieu of money, were daily offered to farmers 
at forty per cent, discount in the uncurrent tender of 
Pennsylvania currency. Every petty claim of indebted- 
ness was urged and pressed before the justices of the 
township with an earnestness really annoying. 

It was at this time that the existence of the company 
was preserved and prolonged by a timely loan made them 
by Joseph H. and E. C. Scranton,^ then of Augusta, 
Georgia. 

The persons once expecting but a negative advantage 
tli(3mselves, expressed regret at their expected arrest and 
destruction ; others looked calmly and coldly on the 
severe, unabated energy with which the Scrantons, for- 
getting every other consideration, fought for their bare 
integrity and financial preservation. Their failure at this 
especial time would have been of double signification and 

' KQled by the cars, Dec 29, 1866, at Norwalk, Ct. 



LACKAWANNA VAIJ.EV. 239 

injury, while the Aoung, giant vulley, far up among the 
hills, would have resumed tiie natural simplicity of its 
former character. 

As the company faltered under the pressure of distrust, 
and danger menacing it from every side. Col. Scranton 
never exhibited the elastic and buoyant disposition ever 
characterizing the man, with such admirable advantage 
as now. He proposed to enhance the value of their iron 
25 per cent., by converting it into nails and bars, by the 
aid of a Rolling Mill and Nail Factory, to be built on 
the brook below Nay-aug Falls. To accomplish this 
great project, Selden T. Scranton w^as sent to New York 
to negotiate for funds, if possible. This he successfully 
did. He thus obtained $20,000. The Rolling Mill and 
Nail Factory begun in 1843, ^vas completed in 1844. 
The erection of these w^orks with New York capital 
has indirectly led to an investment in coal lands in the 
Lackawanna basin, from the same quarter, of some one 
hundred and fifty millions. 

The plan of the village of Harrison, laid out on a 
diminutive scale in 1841, by Captain Stott, a superior 
draughtsman of Carbondale, gave such brisk signs of life 
that the neighboring villages of Hyde Park, Providence, 
and Dunmore, feared that its continued growth might, at 
some future period, equal or possibly surpass their own ! 

It yet had no post-office. Hyde Park and Providence, 
a mile or two away, afforded the nearest mail facilities. 
Dr. Throop, then residing in the latter village, a warm, 
influential friend of the Scrantons and the improvements 
they were striving to inaugurate, attempted to get one 
established at this point. The Department at Washington, 
influenced by the known fact that a post-office had been 
suspended here a few years previous for the want of 
support, naturally gave the matter an unfavorable con- 
sideration. 

Nor had the village a single minister, lawyer, or phy- 
sician, within its boundaries. Dr. Gideon Underwood, 



240 HISTORY OF THE 

now of Pittston, began professional life in Harrison in 
1845 ; lie abandoned the place after a few months, for the^ 
reason that it was '' too small to support a doctor." The 
late Dr. Robinson was liis only competitor in the township 
of Providence, where now no less than fifty physicians 
manage to keep sonl and body together, and yet the 
entire practice failed to sustain a gentleman every way 
worthy of trust. Dr. Pier opened an office in the village 
in 1848 ; Dr. John B. Sherrerd in 1849. Drs. Throop- 
and Sherrerd started the first drug-store in the town, 
which, after the death of Dr. Sherrerd, the next year, 
passed into the hands of L. S. & E. C. Fuller, two gen- 
tlemen who have, through a long series of years, obtained 
a comparative competency by their diligence and atten- 
tion to business. 

In the spring of 1844, Selden T. Scranton, who, like all 
the Scrantons already mentioned, originally came from 
East Guilford, now Madison, New Haven County, Conn., 
removed from Oxford Furnace, New Jersey, settled in 
Harrison, exchanging positions with his brother George. 
He was one of the men who shared in the acquisition of 
the Roaring Brook lands, four years previous to this, and 
who, by no idle stroke of fortune, succeeded in connecting 
his name with its remotest future. Gaining some knowl- 
edge of the mineral resources of the valley of the 
Lackawanna from his father-in-law, William Henry, he 
readily joined in the hazard of their successful devel- 
opment ; and, by the happy exercise of a talent adapted 
admirably to win friendship or insure success, he con- 
tributed to sow the seeds, of which the fruits were to 
appear in less than a lifetime. Selden was uniform in his 
advocacy of all pertaining to the welfare of the valley, 
and yet so honorable and consistent were his efforts in 
this direction, that it can be said of him, as of few men, he 
never made an enemy or lost a friend. The celebrated 
Oxford Furnace is now managed and principally owned 
bv him. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 243 

Under a new direction of nieclianical industry, insti- 
tuted at tli(5 LackaAvanna Iron Works by its founders, the 
final strui^gle, which was life or death in a commercial 
sense to the inhabitants of the township of Providence, 
began to give way for actual remuneration. The T rail 
was first manufactured in the United States in 1845. 
Kailroads, everywhere shod with the thin, flat rail, called 
for the T rail, the first of which was made in Harrison for 
the New York and Erie Railroad in 1847. This pioneer 
road through southern New York was then in operation 
no farther than Goshen. English iron, costing the Erie 
Company $80 per ton, had thus far been laid. 

The presence of every variety f»f material cheaply 
attained, led the Scrantons to believe that as good, if not 
superior, T rail could be furnished by them, especially 
upon the Delaware and Susquehanna divisions, at a 
lower figure than the English iron masters across the 
Nvater had hitherto afforded. 

Joseph H. Scranton, a man whose active mind for nearly 
a quarter of a century has been employed in guiding the 
iron enterprise which this company have developed, pur- 
cliased the interests of Mr. Grant in 1846. Mr. Piatt, who 
subsequently became a partner, filled the position vacated 
by Mr. Grant, and through the successive changes of 
firms, the expansion and enlargement of business, he has 
held the same satisfactory and creditable relation to the 
place he has filled so long. 

The year of 1846 was auspicious in the history of Har- 
rison. Col. Scranton returned, and aided by Joseph and 
Selden, negotiated a contract with the Erie Railroad 
Company for 12,000 tons of iron -rail, to weigh 58 pounds to 
the yard ; to be made and delivered at the mouth of the 
Lackawaxen, in Pike Count}', during the years of 1847-8. 
This arrangement was mutually advantageous to both 
parties. It was of vital significance to that great road, 
now stretching its fibers from the lake to the sea. At the 
opening of the northern division of the Delaware, Lacka- 



24-4 HISTOUV OF THE 

wanna, and Western Railioad, Mr. Loder. tlien PrrsidfMit 
of the Erie Compai)y, stated in a pnblic speech that 
nothing bnt the prompt fnlhlhnent of this contract averted 
bankruptcy to the road, by enabling them within the 
specified time to open it to Binghaniton. To the Scranton 
Company it evoked life-long results. The men whose 
common interests and joint sacrifices and struggles had 
bound them together in the unity of brotherhood, felt the 
invigorating and fervid influence of this great sale of iron, 
Avhich gave to the valley a prospect and prominence it 
never had enjoyed before. 

Mills and machinery of a corresponding chai-acter, with 
the wherewithal to erect them, were thus necessitated hy 
compliance of the contract. 

Several gentlemen, wealthy and warm friends of tht^ 
Erie i oad, promptly came forward, and on the simph^ 
obligations of the Scran tons alone, with no security, but 
faith in their integrity, loaned them $100,000 to construct 
the requisite iron-works. Extraoi'dinary activity was 
noAv displayed in Harrison, in every department of busi- 
ness, the active management of which passed into the 
hands of Joseph H. Scranton, who came here to reside in 
1847. 

Up until now the means of transportation to market 
of the now largely increased annual product of iron, 
remained as difficult as at the commencement, with the 
exception of the extension of the Delaware and Hudson 
Canal Company's railroad from Carbondaleto Archbald, 
Avhich reduced the hauling by teams to nine miles ; the 
iron ore was carted three miles and a half from the mines ; 
the limestone and extra pig-iron needed by the mill, pur- 
chased at Danville, drawn from the canal at Pittston, and 
the railroad iron, now the principal product of the works, 
was drawn to Archbald upon heavy wagons, requiring 
the use of over four hundred horses and mules. Even 
this large force, gathered from the farmers of Blakeley, 
Providence, and Lackawanna, sometimes at the expense 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 247 

of agricultural intei-ests, was able to luove the first rail 
iron only with provoking tardiness. 

Two large blast-furnaces were now in the course of con- 
struction, as well as a railroad to the ore mines on the 
mountain. This road was so graded that the empty cars 
could be drawn to the mines by mules, and when loaded 
with ore, return to the furnace by gravity power alone, 
over five miles and a half of this circuitous road. 

On the south side of Roaring Brook, some three hun- 
dred houses had been built for the workmen ; upon the 
the other, now the business part of Scranton, but a single 
dwelling, aside from the few owned and occupied by the 
company, stood. This had been erected by Dr. Throop 
for his brother. With the constant influx of new-comers, 
the doctor, who was recognized pre-eminently throughout 
the country as the doctor, removed from Providence to 
Harrison in 1847. On the old mill road leading from 8lo- 
Gum Hollow to Razormlle, amidst the tranquil woodlands, 
he built his modest cottage. He lived here many yeai-s, 
Avith his family, with no house in sight of his own, sur- 
rounded by the low murmuring pines, where, after the pro- 
fessional drives of the day, he enjoyed the cheerful fireside 
and smoked his pipe in quiet, with no sound to distuib 
him, save the grave bo-loonk-hlonk of the denizens of the 
adjacent swamp, tuning up their minstrelsy at each suc- 
cessive nightfall. The cottage, remodified and absorbed 
into business quarters, is yet seen in sound condition, near 
the Presbyterian church. 

The Lackawanna Iron Company, organized under the 
general partnership law, consisted of George W. Scran- 
ton, Selden T. Scranton, Joseph H. Scranton, and J. C. 
Piatt as the general partners, and several New York gen- 
tlemen as special ones. Edward C. Lynde and Edward 
P. Kingsbury, two gentlemen eminently qualified for any 
station, fill the respective positions of secretary and assist- 
ant treasurer. 

To carry through the programme of maniifacturiDig and 



248 HISTORY OF THE 

delivering to the New York and Erie Railroad Coni]\^inj, 
this quantity of iron, with the limited capital at command, 
required extraordinary exertion and energy. Extra work, 
additional machinery, and various expensive materials, 
augmented the necessity of more mone}^ and labor. Large 
iron contrivances which were essential to the works were 
drawn, by the jaded horse or stubborn mule, sixty or sev- 
enty miles over the rough, hilly roads for which upper 
Pennsylvania was formerly distinguished. Teams consist- 
ing of eight mules were used for this service with such vex- 
atious experience, that willing and reliable drivers were 
rarely found or retained. When such were apparently se- 
cured, the company found it necessary to contract with the 
keepers of the small taverns along the road from Strouds- 
burg tQ the Hollow, to furnish meals for their drivers and 
feed for their teams, and forward bills each month to the 
office for payment. It was especially provided that no 
liquor should, under any condition or circumstance, be 
furnished the drivers. Yet bills properly attested for 
" sixteen glasses of leming ayde (lemonade), at six- 
pence a glass, and one pint of whisky," came from 
places where a lemon had never been heard of before or 
since. 

The business of the company, so comprehensive in its 
character, so beneficial in its influence, made many a val- 
ley fireside exult with hopes and smiles. To witness a 
town spring fl'om a pasture lot Avith such rapidity into a 
maze of founderies, furnaces, manufacturing works, and 
dwellings full of bright expectations, caused astonishment 
and pride among the inhabitants, unused to such rapid 
advancement. The rise in real estate along the Lacka- 
wanna Valley, as well as Wyoming, since the organiza- 
rion of this company, was at least one hundred per 
cent., while the relations of the Scrantons with the pub- 
lic were harmonious, and characterized throughout by 
general good feeling. It is true, there were then as there 
are yet, and ever will be, a class of croakers who gathered 




!ENJ. H. THROOP, M. 



LACKAWANNA VAI.LKY. 251 

in bar-room groups and gravely predicted that "the 
Scrantons must fail." 

On the western side of the Lackawanna a line of four- 
horse stages ran up from Wilkes Barre to Carbondale, 
connecting at each place with a similai* line via Milford 
and Morristown to New York, and via Easton to Phila- 
delphia, and furnished the only mode of conveyance to or 
from the Lackawanna, and brought Xew York daily 
papers to Providence and Hyde Park in the forenoon of 
the third day after their publication. 

The mills were completed ; as they molded the hills into 
iron fiber awaiting no longer a market, the Lackawanna 
Iron Works stepped into the front ranks and established 
their character beyond cavil or perad venture. The first 
fifteen hundred tons of railroad ii-on was delivered at the 
mouth of the Lackawaxen. Here it was taken by canal 
to Port Jervis, and laid on the road between that place 
and Otisville. After that portion of the Erie road was 
opened to the public, the ('om})any. delayed by injunc- 
tions urged on by the cupidity of Philadelphians and the 
New York Central interests, in crossing the river into Penn- 
sylvania at the Glass House rocks, finding their utter 
inability to open the road to Binghamton by the time 
specified without the delivery of the balance of the iron 
at different points along the route by the Scranton Com- 
pany, arranged such terms of delivery, in pursuance of 
which the Scranton Company carted by teams some seven 
thousand tons of rail, which they delivered at Narrows- 
burgh, Cochecton, Equinunk, Stockport, Summit, and 
Lanesboro, an average distance of about fifty miles, thus 
enabling the company to lay the track almost simultane 
ously at all points along the Delaware division as fast 
as the grading was ready, and open the road for one hun 
dred and thirty miles four days ahead of the appointed 
time. The difficulty of carting so large an amount of iron 
within so brief a period, can be inferred only b}'- those 



252 HISTORY OF THE 



venmg. 

A post-office, named Scrantonia, was established in 
Harrison in 1848, and John W. Moore appointed post- 
master. The name of Harrison was dropped for that of 
Scrantonia. The same year the old names of Capoose 
and Slocum Hollow were disowned and forgotten by new- 
comers ; the accidental and transient ones, Lackawanna 
Iron Works, Harrison, Scrantonia, were folded up and 
laid away forever for the briefer name of Scranton. 

The rapid expansion and concentration of business at 
this point, as well as the absence of all necessary commu- 
nications with the sea-board and the lakes, rendered an 
outlet east or west most apparent and desirable. The 
project of connecting the valley by railroad with the New 
York and Erie road, in a northerly direction, was fi-e- 
quently discussed by the general partners ; in fact, it was 
the sanguine expectations of a line of public improvement 
being extended both north and south at no distant day, 
that went far toward deciding the original proprietors in 
locating here. 

With a view of bringing the subject of railroad facili- 
ties, and connections with the valley generally, before the 
minds of capitalists in a manner both advantageous and 
effective, Col. George W. Scranton was detailed from the 
active engagement of the affairs of the Iron Company in 
the summer of 1848. 

Valuable coal lands had been secured as a reliable 
basis of such an enterprise ; large delegations of New 
York and New England gentlemen were persuaded from 
time to time to visit the valley and examine the vast min- 
eral resources apparent along its border, and witness the 
dark croppings of coal, the fertile farms and luxurious 
intervale, the abundant water-power for mills or manufac- 
turing purposes, the splendid sites and the fine timber ; 
all of which, the moment a railroad outlet appeared, 
would be trebled in value. By many, the valley was 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 2o.> 

considered too wild ;md remote, or too difficult of access, 
even for an exploring tour. Such never left the parental 
roof, and it was left for bolder hearts and stouter arms to 
plant and reap the harvest. An extra stage-coach, with 
its five miles an hour speed, now and then brought into 
the valley delegation after delegation from the East, which 
were hailed with friendly solicitude by the inhabitants. 
Often and alw^ays was the inquiry heard of that firm 
friend of the public interest, Sam Tripp, "AYhen the 
Yorkers were coming?" All eyes, for a time, were 
directed toward tlie local movements of the Yorkeis, 
and the hope of every honest citizen then as well as 
now was, that long life and prosperity Avould be the for- 
tune of all who came. 

Until 1847 no car had rolled nor had a single rail 
reached the remote Lackawanna, with the exception of 
those upon the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company's 
railroad from Carbondale to Honesdale. This road was 
a gravity one, worked by stationary steam-engines and 
liorse-power, over the Moosic Mountain, and was built in 
1826-8. 

Drinker" s route for a railroad from Pittston to Delaware 
Water Gap, surve^^ed in 1824. to develop Avhich Scranton 
Mas originally planned, and ultimately reversed in rela- 
tion and purpose, had yet no living functions given its 
indefinite existence. The line was run with a vieAv of in- 
clined planes operated by watei-, and perhaps a canal over 
the more level portion of the way. 

Wurts Brothers, Meredith, and Drinker blazed the ti-ees 
along the forest for their gramty roads through many a 
lonely nook shaded by woods ; but the honor of conceiv- 
ing and completing a locomottTe road from Great Bend to 
the Delaware River, belongs to the late Col. George W. 
Scranton — the firm, fast friend of every industrial interest 
of the valley. Mountainous as were the general features 
of the intermediate country, formidable as appeared the 
idea of grading ranges offering stubborn resistance to such 



254 HISTOKY OF THE 

invasions of the engineer, he advanced and nrged forward 
his scheme until he was able to see and share its substan- 
tial achievements and advantages. Under the immediate 
direction of Col. Scranton, a preliminary survey was made 
of the proposed route, which was found to be quite as 
feasible as his own personal observations had led him to 
expect, and, as the idle charter of Leggett's Gap Railroad 
would answer eveiy practical purpose, after slight modi- 
fications, it was purchased. 

The public mind, understanding only the rough topog- 
raphy of the country, without a single village of a thou- 
sand inhabitants, was instructed into the benefits to fiow 
from the construction of this rail highway to the upper 
border of the State. The subscription books were opened 
at Kresler's hotel, in Scranton, in 1847, by the commission- 
ers, and the whole capital stock promptly subscril)ed, and 
ten per cent, paid in. While these flattering movements 
argued well for the common welfare of the valley, and 
country adjacent, men of means were so shy of the enter- 
prise, that it was the work of two long years of ceaseless 
labor amidst every possible discouragement, before any 
real capital could be calculated upon. The road was 
commenced in 1850, and pushed forward in the same 
spirit of earnest enthusiasm with which it was conceived. 
To overcome the objection tliat it would not pay as an 
investment, and reach and make a more northern market 
(for the first loads of coal taken hence, were glr^en aioay 
in order to introduce the black stuff into general use), 
the Ithaca and Owego Railroad, one of the oldest roads 
in the country, was purchased by the Iron Company 
in 1849. This, like all railroads in the United States at 
this time, was laid with the Jlat or strap rail — a rail pos- 
sessing neither strength nor safety, as one end of it some- 
times becoming bent would dart up with lightning-like 
rapidity into the passing train, marking its progress with 
appalling slaughter. 

A new company being now organized, called the Cayuga 



LACKAWANNA VAI,LEV. 255 

and Susquehanna Railroad Company, for the purpose of 
building this road, Colonel Scranton was chosen Presi- 
dent, who at once repaired to Ithaca and discharged the 
duties of the position with acknowledged prudence and 
success. 

To carry out the original plan contemplated by the 
■colonel, of connecting the iron- works with New York 
City by a locomotive road, a survey was made eastward 
in 1851-2, and the next year the present line, running 
parallel and sometimes embracing the Drinker route, 
adopted. 

Thus far Scranton had but a single hotel. Mr. Kresler, 
popular as a landlord, could not in his abridged quarters 
meet the demands of the throng turning into the village. 
A large brick hotel, such as only courageous men could 
have planned in such a place, was erected in 1852, by the 
Iron Company, to which was applied the strange mis- 
nomer of Wyoming House. Mr. J. C. Burgess became 
the purchaser, and is the present owner. The next public 
house emerging from the forest, from which it derived its 
name — Forest House — whs titted up and kept by Joseph 
Godfrey, Esq. The St. Charles, Kock's, and the Lacka- 
wanna Valley House, appropriate in name, and a dozen 
others less familiar to the wayfarer, have anticipated the 
demand of the moving world until, to-day, Scranton can 
boast of the beauty, comfoit, and healthfulness of its 
hotels, rarely equaled, and surpassed nowhere within the 
State. 

The Iron Company reorganized in 1853, under a special 
charter, with a capital of $800,000, and Selden T. Scranton, 
now of Oxford Furnace, N. J., elected President, and 
Joseph H. Scranton, the present Manager and President, 
Superintendent. 

After the Lackawanna and Western Railroad was con- 
solidated with the Delaware and Cobb's Gap charter, 
under the name of the "Delaware, Lackawanna, and 
Western Railroad Company," work was commenced 



2o6 qiSTORY OF THE 

vigorously on tlie southern division of this road. On the 
21st of January, 1856, the first locomotive and train of 
cars passed over the Delaware. 

Rapid as has been the sympathetic growth of half a 
dozen villages from Pittston to Carbondale, theirs has been 
a snail's pace compared to the sturdier growth of Scranton. 
In July, 1840^256 small brown tenements composed the 
town of Slocum Hollow, where now the young city of 
Scranton, perpetuating the name of its founders as long as 
t lie Lackawanna shall flow by the dwellings of civilized 
man, enumerates a population, constantly increasing, of 
flve-and-forty thousand. 

The stranger who visits Scranton may not find as much 
wildness and sublimity around it as when, from the 
Pocono Range, his eye first catches a glimpse of the truly 
bold outlines of the Delaware Water Gap, he will, never- 
theless, as he walks along the walls of Roaring Brook, and 
gazes on the massive piles of furnace stacks, pouring out, 
day after day, ponds of rude or finished iron, from the 
ponderous bar to the delicate bolt, and sees the smooth, 
yet resistless motion of the largest stationary engine on the 
American Continent, feel proud and pleased with th^^ 
sights of industry and thrift everywhere around him. 

To get and appreciate a bird's-eye view of the town and 
valley, let the tourist ascend the high bluff near the Bap- 
tist Church in Hyde Park, overlooking the city, where 
the charming panorama tliat unrolls itself before him, will 
compensate in the highest degree for the trouble of the 
visit. He will then look down into a region interesting 
for its scenery, its strata of coal, its beds of iron ore, and 
its Indian history. The first impression is one favorable 
toward this portion of the valley, as there appears on 
every side evidence of animation and thrift. 

Yonder the noisy water (Roaring Brook) takes a white 
Itiap from one of tlie loveliest and loneliest nooks carved 
from the mountain, before it splashes on the busy wheel 
of the manufacturer, and after being used three or four 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 2C:7 

times in its passage through the city, in ingles with the 
Avaters of the Lackawanna below. The huge, round, 
slate-roofed locomotive depot, filled with engines, at first 
strikes the eye, and reminds liim of the Roman Coliseum ; 
while the landscape, sprinkled with brown-colored depots, 
car-shops, and Vulcan-shops on every side ; the chaste, 
imposing churches, the long white line of public and 
private architecture contrasting finely with the deep green 
of the surrounding trees, tastily left for shade ; the 
trains of coal cars, serpentine and dark, emerging from 
the " Diamond Mines ;" or skimming along the iron veins, 
down a grade of seventy feet to the mile, from the pro- 
ductive coal works at the "Notch," some two miles 
distant, on their passage to New York ; the locomotives 
of the Lehigh and Susquehanna, the Lackawanna and 
Bloomsburg, of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western, 
of the Delaware and Hudson Railroads, rushing into 
Scranton like some fleet devils, carrying on their back 
the w^liole moving world whether they will or not ; the 
vilhigps of Hyde Park, Providence, Dunmore, and Green 
Ride, arrayed in thrifty garb, far up and down the valley ; 
the Lee-har-hanna, with its modest throat and richer 
sliade drawn like a belt of silver along the picture ; the 
neat farm-houses, here and there nestling in some lovely 
meadow, or half hid among the blossoms of orchards, 
with the background of the unshorn mountain, swelling 
upward from Wyoming or the Lackawanna region, all 
make up a sight as beautiful as the Jewish ruler of old 
once witnessed from old Mount Nebo. Nor is this all. 
As he looks into the bosom of "Capouse Meadow," his 
eye wanders over coal lands which, fifteen years before 
the completion of a railroad outlet north from the valley, 
could have been purchased for fifteen dollars per acre, 
and which now are worth $800 and $1,000 ; and building- 
lots, which then no respectable man was willing to accept 
as a gratuity, now readily bring from one to five thousand 
dollars each. 



i3^b HISTORY OF THE 

Tlie growth of Scranton lias been marked by uniform 
decades. 

In 1826, the Drinker Railroad wrought consternation 
among the pines of this secluded glen ; in 1836 the same 
measure, combined with the North Branch Canal and new 
county schemes, again awakened hopes partially fulfilled. 
In 1846, sales of iron made by the Scranton Company, 
enabled them to defy threatened bankruptcy ; in 1856, 
the first locomotive engine rolled from Scranton, just 
formed into a borough, to the Delaware River; in 1866, 
incorporated into a city ; and in 1876, all the townships in 
northern and central Luzerne will probably take their 
places in the new county of Lackawanna, with the county 
seat at Scranton. In 1866, Scranton, Hyde Park, and 
Providence, were fashioned by the legislature of Penn- 
sylvania into a city composed of twelve wards, with all 
the municipal rights and regulations necessary for its exist- 
ence. E. S. M. Hill, Esq., was elected mayor. 

The newspaper interests of Scranton, now so prominent 
a feature, had no place or foothold until fifteen years 
ago. 

During he year 1845, a newspaper called the Gowuty 
Mirror was started in Providence (now the 1st and 2d 
Wards, Scranton), by the late Franklin B. Woodward. 
Harrison at this time had made so humble pretensions 
that but a single advertisement from the village found its 
way into this lively paper. In. 1852, the Lackawanna 
Herald^ a paper of more partisan bitterness than real 
ability, was issued in Scranton by Charles E. Lathrop. 
Three years later the Spirit of the Valley was published 
by Thomas J. Alleg^r and J. B. Adams for one year, 
when the two were consolidated under the name of the 
Herald of the Union^ purchased and edited by the late 
Ezra B. Chase, — a gentleman of superior literary attain- 
ments. Declining health induced him soon after to sell 
out to Dr. A. Davis and J. B. Adams. In the spring of 
1859, Dr. Davis purchased the interest of Mr. Adams, 



LACKAWANNA VALLKV. 259 

transferring it to Dr. Silas M. Wheeh^r, and the paper 
was managed by these medical gentlemen with a degree 
of originality and spiciness rarel}'^ seen in a country 
newspaper. Dr. Davis at that time moved into Scranton, 
building the tirst house erected on Franklin Avenue, and 
now occupied by Dr. G. W. Masser. This paper finally 
subsided into the Scranton Register, owned and edited by 
Mayor E. S. M. Hill, until the summer of 1868. 

Theodore Smith established the Scranton Republican 
in 1856, conducting it in a highly creditable manner for 
two years, when F. A. McCartney became the proprietor. 
After being owned by Thos. J. Alleger, and conducted 
fairly and honorably, it passed into the hands of F. A. 
Orandall, then again into those of F. A. Crandall & Co., 
the present energetic and spirited owners. The Scranton 
City Journal came forth from the hands of Messrs. Bene- 
dicts in 1867, and from the acknowledged industry and 
qualifications of these gentlemen, the new paper can hardly 
iail to thrive. 

The Scranton WocJienhlatt, a German ])aper, was 
started, with a large circulation, January 1865, by E. A. 
Ludwig. It is now edited and published b}^ F. Wagner, 
and presents a neat appearance. The Democrat — a bold, 
original, ultra- democratic paper — edited by J. B. Adams, 
has already secured the favorable consideration and good 
opinion of the people of the countrj^. 

The above named are and were all weekly publications. 

One or two dailies and tri- weeklies have been born and 
buried within tbat period ; some of them, especially the 
Morning Herald, a daily published in 1866 by J. B. 
Adams, evidenced considerable merit. None of them 
however, exhibited the substantial prosperity shown by 
tbe Scranton Daily Register, edited by E. S. M. Hill, 
Esq., and managed in its local department by J. B. Adams 
with a bluntness and severity of thought, which, however 
creditable it might have been to his abilities as a writer, 
offended the erring rather than corrected the errors of the 



260 HISTORY OF THE 

day. Messrs. Carl and Burtch, purchased the paper in 
1868, converted it into an evening issue, and by its teU*- 
grapliic features and the vigor of its young editors, with- 
out abating any of its democratic tendencies, it has already 
gained a place in the public heart. 

In spite of the failures in every inland town and city 
in Pennsylvania to sustain a daily paper, with full tele- 
graphic news, Messrs. Scrantonand Crandall essayed forth 
the Scr anion Daily Repiihlican in November, 1867, as 
an experimental measure. 

Its prosperity and success, at first jeopardized by a 
disastrous fire, is now fully assured in public opinion, 
and all concede to these gentlemen the credit of first offer- 
ing to the people a daily country paper, with telegraphic 
news simultaneously enjoyed by the New York Asso- 
ciated Press. Its local department, managed by Mr. 
Chase, and its general editorials, somewhat ultra and 
positive in their character, bear evidence of vigorous 
thought. 

Scranton abounds in industrial enterprises, which its 
remarkable growth have prompted and fostered. 

Finch & Co.'s Scranton City Foundeky and Machine 
Works, situated on the Hyde Park side of the Lacka- 
wanna, was established, in 1856, by Mr. A. P. Finch. 
This establishment, representing higli engineering attain- 
ment, is largely engaged in the manufacture of portable 
and stationary engines, mining machinery, circular saw- 
mills, turbine water-wheels, iron fronts, &c., &c. 

Maclaren's Brass Foundery, deriving its name from 
its founder and owner, John Maclaren, is located in 
Scranton, near the depot of the Lehigh and Susquehanna 
Railroad. Its establishment in 1866, to supply the de- 
mands of a wide section hitherto seeking New York or 
Philadelphia for the infinite variety of brass work needed 
in the interest of commerce, gave proof of sound judg- 
ment and a correct appreciation of the increasing wants 
of the Valley of the Lackawanna. This is one of the* 



LACKAWANNA VALI.KY. 



2t>l 




'^^'^ HlhTOKY OF IHE 

most extensive brass founderies in the State, and while its 
success adds to the wealth and vigor of Scranton, the 
public are not indifferent to its general welfare. 

Tjie Capouse \V()i;ks of Pulaski Carter, of Providence, 
known far and wide by the superior character of the 
edge tools issuing from them, as well as by the self-made 
man instituting on the low bank of the Lackawanna this 
'pioneer mechanical enterprise; The Sash and Blind 
Manufactory of Messrs. Hand & Costen, of Providence ; 
the Peovidence Stove Manufactory of Henry O. Silk- 
man ; the ScRANTON Stove and Manufacturing Com- 
pany, of Scranton, and the various individual and asso- 
ciated operations and improvements within the city limits, 
establishes the reputation of Scranton as a manufacturing 
rather than a mining city. 

The sketch of the history of Scranton can hardly be 
api^ropriately closed without a glance at the great iron 
works now in blast here, capable of smelting about sev- 
enty thousand tons of ore a year. The sizes of these blast 
furnaces may be inferred from the diameter of the bosJieSy 
which are respectively 18, 18, 19, and 20 feet, with a 
height of fifty feet. Into these furnaces air is forced by 
four lever-beam engines of vast power. The steam cylin 
ders are fifty-four inches in diameter. The blowing cyl 
inders are 110 inches in diameter, with ten feet strokr. 
The wind is forced by this apparatus into the furnaces, 
under an average pressure of eight pounds to the square 
inch. The huge fly-wheels whicli regulate the move- 
ments of this enormous apparatus weigh forty thousand 
pounds. In order to be prepared for any possible exi- 
gency, and have increased blowing power, the Iron Com- 
pany have built appropriate apartments, and set up still 
another pair of engines upon the very ground where for- 
merly stood, under one roof, the first ofiice, store, and 
dwelling of Messrs. Scranton and Grant, in Harrison, sub- 
sequently known as "Kresler's Hotel." 

This pail- of engines have cylinders 59 inches in diarae- 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 263 

ter, and blowing cylinders 90 inches. Each engine has 
two fly-wheels, 28 feet in diameter, weighing seventy-five 
thousand pounds. By this power they are able to force 
air into the furnaces under a pressure of eight or nine 
pounds to the square inch, a great advantage, as it is 
found by experiments that in order for a furnace to yield 
the greatest product, it must not only have a certain 
amount of air, but that the air, to be most advantageous, 
must be introduced under heavy pressure, and at many 
places simultaneously, when it is more equally diffused 
through the stack. The aggregate productive capacity of 
the Scranton furnaces is about sixty thousand tons per 
annum. 

A walk of five minutes brings one to the rolling-mills, 
which also stand on the north side of the Roaring Brook. 
Midway between the furnace and the mills, down the bank 
of the brook to the right, is seen a railroad track leading 
into a mine directly under our feet, into which a few 
blackened coal cars, drawn by mules, disappear in mid- 
night. This vein of coal, at this point, which is used in 
all the iron works now, is the very one first seen by the 
exploring party, in 1840, led by Mr. Henry, and wliich, in 
connection with the adjacent iron deposits, decided the 
Scrantons and Mr. Grant to purchase this property for 
sixteen dollars an acre. Entering the rolling-mill, one is 
surprised to see the magnitude and the precision of the 
whole arrangement. The principal product of the mills 
is T railroad bars, of which about 40,000 tons a year are 
finished. A great quantity of railroad spikes and chairs 
are made, besides some three thousand tons of merchant- 
able iron. 

About 200,000 tons of coal are mined annually by the- 
Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company, and consumed at 
their works. 

Some general idea can be formed of the imposing char- 
acter of the iron-works by the fact that over two hundred 
thousand tons of anthracite coal per } ear are consumed by 



264 HiSTORr OF the 

them alone, while they furnish employment to an ( ffective 
army of two thousand men ! 

The amount of capital already expended by the Dela- 
ware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad Company, in 
their railroad and coal property, including the Cayuga 
and Susquehanna Railroad, and the Warren Railroad, in 
New Jersey, is, at this time, over fifteen million dollars, 
and a large amount will yet be required to complete the 
double track and properly equip the road. 

The influence of the opening of this great eastern and 
western outlet upon a valley so long shut out from the 
great world by mountain barriers, make as plain as noon- 
day, facts of yesterday and to-day. It is visible in every 
hamlet, felt in every cottage by the wayside, and is writ- 
ten in vivifying lines everywhere along the Lackawanna ; 
while the vast revolution it has efi"ected in monetary 
affairs, finds expression in the grand aggregate of pros- 
perity seen throughout every county in Pennsylvania and 
New Jersey through which the road passes. Much of this 
prosperity is due to Hon. John Brisbin, President of the 
road for the last ten years, and who has managed its 
affairs with singular sagacity and skill. 

What Scranton lacks in antiquity^ is compensated for 
in the design of theoriginal village ; in its fine streets, 
laid out with great regularity, and illuminated with gas 
— in its ample water works, supplying the purest water 
from the upper Nay-aug — in its street railroads, which 
traverse every portion of the city — in its free schools, sur- 
passed by none in the State ; in its churches, representing 
so great a diversity of religious sentiment, in the magnifi- 
cence or the modesty of their structures, that ' ' none need 
fall among thorns or thieves ;' ' in its doctors of medicine, 
sheltered by broad Latin diplomas, which all the diction- 
aries in the Vatican would not enable them to read, skilled 
in the wherewithal to heal the sick and invigorate the 
feeble ; in its clever lawyers, blustering when opposed, 
and ever ready to mystify and perplex the simplest mat- 



LACKAWANNA VALLKV. 265 

ter for a fee ; in its doctors of divinity who, learned in 
biblical affairs, are ever ready 

"By apostolic blows and knocks 
To show their doctrine orthodox;" 

in fact, by the general intelligence and thrift of its inhab- 
itants everywhere observed within its borders. Wyoming 
Valley, worthy of the ftime it has acquired the world 
over, boasts of its gray obelisk with an honest pride, — of 
its shire town, filled with elegance, wealth, and intelli- 
gence, deriving much of its celebrity from being the resi- 
dence of some of the finest laAvyers in the State, with, its 
streets shaded by long lines of stately elms ; and yet it 
lacks the marvelous and irresistible business impulse 
which makes up the enchantment of Scranton City. Lo- 
cated in the very midst of unbounded mineral wealth, it 
will naturally exact tribute from the surrounding country 
by the aid of the numerous railroads entering within its 
limits, until the villages that begirt it now will expand 
and commingle and involuntarily become merged into one 
of the greatest cities of the State. 

THE DICKSON MANUFACTURING COMPANY. 

The first stationary steam-engine used in the valley of 
the Lackawanna, between Carbondale and Wilkes Barre, 
where now no less thanj^?)(9 hundred daily vindicate the 
name of Stephenson, was put up in the rolling-mill in 
Scranton in 1847. 

The valley, at this time, had just become an object of 
desire and competition, which led to its more energetic 
development. One of the results of that development 
which has aspired to make Scranton the great commercial 
manufacturing emporium, is visible in the existence and 
operations of the Dickson Manufacturing Company, which 
was organized in 1856. 

This company, with a capital of $500,000, absorbing 
the "Cliff Works" and "Planing Mill" adjoining it in 



266 HISTORY OF THE 

Scranton, and the large foundery and machine-sliops of 
Messrs. Lanning and Marshall at Wilkes Barre, gives- 
steady employment to nearly a thousand men. 

Not only is its business immense in volume, but sa 
diversified in its general character, that the huge, station- 
ary engine that throbs its lay upon the Moosic, or the 
locomotive plovring the plain below — the mining ma- 
chinery, and every mechanical contrivance that can be 
wrought from iron or wood by the skill of the artisan 
engaged in the works of this company, all promise a 
measure of future prominence and remuneration, credita- 
ble alike to mechanical genius, and its happy concentra- 
tion and encouragement by Thomas Dickson, the Presi- 
dent of this young, opulent association. 

The following is a list of physicians who have, at one^ 
time or another, lived and practiced their profession 
within the area now embraced by the chartered limits of 
Scranton City : — 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 



267 



Xames. 


Wlure Settled. 


If 




^ 

§ 


Remarks. 




Slocum Hollow.. 
Providence 

Hyde Park!'..'.'!! 

Harrison 

Providence 


1800 
1813 
1823 
1884 
laSB 
188« 
1810 
1845 
IS45 
1-846 
1846 
1849 
1850 
1850 
1S51 


isis 

1837 
1840 
1841 

1845 
1846 


1830 Dr Davis oriHn.ilIv Ki.Itled nB.ir 


" Orlo Hamlin 

•' Silas B. Robinson 


i860 
1847 


[Spring Brook. 


•• Hiram Blois 








" Benlamin H. Throop... 

•' William H. Pier 

" Gideon Underwood 

" Nehemiah Hanford 

" Horace Hollister. 


Now resides in Scranton. 
Now resides in Scranton. 
Pittston. 


" William E. Rogers 


1858 






Providence 

Dunmore 




'• Julian N.Wilson 

" John B. Sherrerd 


1853 


i853 




" George W. Massei- 

" Bennet A. Bouton 

" Johnathan Le verett 

•' John P. Kluge 




Surgeon in Army Potomac. 
Removed to Scranton. 1867. Pre», 
[Med Society. 


Providence 

3cranton 


18.'52 
1853 
1853 
1853 
1854 
1854 
1854 
1855 
1855 
1856 
1856 
1856 
1856 
1857 
1857 
1857 
1857 
1857 
1858 
IS-nB 
1859 


iS54 
18.53 
1865 




" George B. 8eamons 

" Augustus Davis 


Dunmore 


Removed to Scranton. 1868. 
Hyde Park, Surgeon in Army. 


Hyde Park 

Scranton 


1859 




" Georire B. Boyd 

" William E. Allen 




Hyde Park 






Asst. e.x-Surgeon. 1665, Prov. Marsh, 

[office, Scranton. 
Surgeon to the &4th Pa. Reg. during 
Can.ior, N. Y. [the war. 
Resides at Factoryville, Pa. 


" Ralph A. Squires 

" S. Burton Sturdevant.. 






Providence 






" Asa H. Brundage 

•• Albert M. Capwell 

" F Bodeman 


1^8 
1860 




Dunmore 

Scranton 

Hyde Park'".'"' 


•' William Frothingham.. 
•• John W.Oibbs 


1861 

1858 
1860 

i859 
1S62 


1867 
1865 


New York. 

Jewish Rabbi, Scranton. 

Asst. ex-Surgeon, 1864- 5, in Scran- 
[ton. 


•• N. F. Marsh 

•• Charles Marr . 




" Kn.stiis W. Wells 


u 




i> 


" K. B Evens 


Hyde Park 




" W. II. Heath ... . 










1860 








" J. -M. Fox 












;i 


18601.... 
186l'iSfi7 




" F. Wagner 


,1 


Wilkes Barre 


" Wm. Gelhaar 

" P. H.Moody 

" Willonghby W. Gibbs.. 


Providence 

Dunmore 

Hyde Park! !!.■;.' 
Scranton 


1861 
1862 
1865 
1865 
186*1 


1867 .... 


Ex-Surg. dur'g the war, at Scranton. 
Coroner, Luzerne County. 


" Peter Winters 




" S. P. Reed 


1868 


Scranton. 

Surgeon during the war, 76th Reg. 
[Pa. Vols. " 


" John W. Robathan... . 
" N. Y Leet 


1865 
1866 
1866 
1867 
1867 
1887 
1867 
1867 
1867 
1867 
1867 
1868 






" A. W. Burns 

" Harper B. Lackey 


Providence 






" J. B. Benton . . . 








" C. H. Fisher 










" L. F. Everhart 


u 


Surgeon 8th and 16th Pa. Cavalry. 


" N. B. Roberts 

" — McGinlie 


Hyde Park 


" William Barnes 










" William Haggerty 

" J.Willia.i.s 


11 








Providence 





Names. | Located. \ Arrived. 


Left. 


Dr. A. P. Gardner 


S 


1854 
1855 
1858 
1862 
1865 
1868 
1868 
1868 


18')9 


" — Reynolds 


I, 




" A. P.Hunt 


" 




" C.A.Stevens 




" A. E. Burr 


u .... 


1868 


" J. S. Walter 


11 




Drs. Clark & Ricardo 


u 




Dr. Sidney A. Campbell 


•. 





268 



HISTORY or THE 



The superior or relative status of Providence and Scran- 
ton as business villages, five-and-twenty years ago, is 
plainly apparent in the enumerated list of medical and 
legal gentlemen, who, to advance their fortunes or achieve 
reputation, chose the former place for a residence, be 
cause of its real as well as its expected importance. 

Lawyers who have for a longer or shorter period lived 
and practiced law within the city limits of Scranton : — 



Names. 


firiginul 
location. 


When Admitted. 


Remarks. 


Lewis Jones. Jr 


Carbondale. . . 


August 5, 1834.. 


Now of Scranton. 


Charles H. Silkmau. . . 


Providence . . 


January 1, 1838.. 


" 


Peter Byrne 


Csrboucltilc 


August 3, 1846. . 
August 4, 1846. . 


u 


J. Marion Alexander. . 


Providence . . 


Kansas. 


Elliot S. M. Hill 




April 5, 1847 


First May'r of Scranton. 


David R. Randall 


" 


November 4, 1847 


j Late District Att'y 
( Luzerne Co. 


Daniel Rankins 




August 7. 1850.. 


Clerk of the Court. 


Washington G. Ward. 


Hyde Park.. 


November 10, 1851 




Samuel Sherrerd 


Scranton .... 


April 4, 1853 




Edward Merrifield 


Hyde Park.. 


August 6, 1855... 




George Sanderson 


Scranton 


Sept. 14, 1857 


( Founder of Green 
] Ridge, 


*Ezra B. Chase 


u 


April 7, 1857. . . 








f Register in the Dist. 








1 Court of the U. S., 


Edward N. WiUard... 


'• 


Nov. 17, 1857 


^ for the Western 
[ District of Pa. 








George D. Haugawout. 


" 


January 18. 1858. 




Wm. H. Pratt 


" 


January 4, 1859. . 




David C. Harrington. . 


" 


May 7, I860 




Alfred Hand 


a 


May 8, 1860 

May 16, 1860 


Notary Public. 


Frederick L. Hitchoock 




John Handley 


" 


August 21, 18G0. . 




Aretus H. W'iuton. . . . 


" 


August 22, I860.. 


Notary Public. 


Corydon H. Wells. . . . 


Hyde Park. . . 


August 30, 1860. 




Frederic Fuller 


Scranton .... 


Nov. 13, 1860 ... 




W. Gibson Jones 




April 1, 1861.. . . 




Charles Du Pont Breck 


., 


August 18, 1861.. 




Aaron A. Chase 


" 


August 20, 1862. 




Zebulon M. Ward 


" 


August 17, 1863. 




James Mahoii 




Jan. 6, 1865 


Dist. Att'y Scranton. 


M.J.Byrne 


ii 


Dec. 5, 1866 




Francis D. Collins 


" 


Dec. 24, 1866 




Francis E. Looniis. . . . 


'• 


Feb. 20, 1866.... 




Daniel Hannah 




Feb. 21, 1867 




Jeremiah D. Regan. . . 




August 19, 1867.. 




Lewis M. Bunell 


" 


1867 




J. M. C. Ranch 


" 






Isaac J. Post 


" 






Charles G. Van Fleet 








F. E. Gunstur, 


" 


Sept. 21. 1868... 




Wm. Stanton. 






1 



Deceased. 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 2G^ 



BLAKELEY. 



"This towuship was called Blakeley from respect to the 
memory of Captain Johnston Blakeley, who commanded 
the United States sloop of war Wasp, and who signalized 
himself in an engagement with the British sloop Avon.''' ' 
It was formed in April, 1818, from "a part of Providence, 
including a corner of Greenfield, east of Lackawanna 
mountain."- It embraced Ragged Island (now Carbon- 
dale) and the lands of the Delaware and Hudson Canal 
Company, then brought into value by William and 
Maurice Wurts. 

During the Revolutionary war, a bridle-path, after- 
ward leading through Rixe's Gap into the county of 
Wayne, marked by trees, was made by the trapper and 
hunter, but no settlement was attempted within its yet 
unmeasured boundaries, until comparative tranquillity 
came to Wyoming and Lackawanna in 1786. In the 
summer of this year, Timothy Stevens, a war-worn veteran 
from Westchester, New York, who had served in the 
long struggle with courage and credit, moved into th«' 
Blakeley woods with his family. No Indian clearing was 
found, and but the vague trace of the deserted wigwam 
appeared on the bank of the stream, where he encamped 
and began a clearing for his home. Here, overshadowed 
by forest, where the pulse of the great world only throb- 
bed in storms and winds, he uprolled his cabin from the 
rough timber felled, and lived many years with his family 
alone. In 1814, he erected a grist-mill upon the Lacka- 
wanna, subsequently known as "Motfsmill," the debr/s 
of which can yet be seen by the road-side, above the 
village of Price. 

There came a strange character here in 1795, about 
whom for a time there was great mystery. He carried a 
gold snuff-box, from which he incessantly inspired his 

' Chapman. ' Court Records. 



270 HISTORY OF THE 

nose, wore an olive velvet coat, was a man ot considerable 
literary attainment ; exhibiting a good deal of 

"Grandeur's remains and gleams of other days," 

He had been a German merchant in Hamburg, received a 
classical education, and was withal a clever linguist. His 
name was Nicholas Leuchens. A man of culture, fond of 
display in early life, he expended a thousand pounds 
sterling at his wedding. He left his native shore to escape 
conscription, landed in Philadelphia, in August, 1795, 
and departed at once for Wyoming Valley, just emerged 
from internal discord. Reaching Wyoming, he strolled 
up the Lackawanna to the present location of Pecktown, 
where he established the first log-structure upon these 
exuberant lowlands. This was thirteen years previous 
to the formation of Blakeley into a township, and Leuchens 
was at this time the only inhabitant in this portion of 
Providence, with the exception of Stevens, living a mile 
or two down the valley. Finding no owner for the land, 
he took possession of about five hundred acres, of which 
he never acquired a title. Here rose his plain habitation, 
roofed with boughs and barks, containing but a single 
room, in which he piled successive layers of beds almost to 
the very roof, so as better to repel the approach of ghosts, 
ever inspiring him with special dread. In the winter of 
1806, he taught a district school in the old jail-house, in 
AVilkes Barre, and one of his pupils^ thus describes the 
school-house. On a little basin of water, called " Yankee 
Pond," lying back of the school-house, there was good 
skating after a cold snap, which the boys in their rustic 
freedom regarded as a healthier developer, both of muscle 
and mind, than the musty lore he aimed to inculcate. 
Leuchens had little control over his school ; the large]- 
boys starting off to skate without permission, assent 
would be given to others to follow, recruit after recruit 

'Anson Goodrich 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 271 

would be sent in vain after the delinquent pupils until 
none were left to do homage to the master. Vexed at his 
roguish and boisterous scholars, he would visit the skating 
pond himself. Being sixty years of age, and near-sighted 
at that, his appearance was greeted with a storm of 
snow-balls, wliich he was unable to restrain or trace to 
the mischievous authors. 

The mental power and the forcep-like grasp of the Ger- 
man trader distinguishing him in other days, forsook him 
on his farm, with his fortune ; he grew aimless, indolent, 
and disheartened, returned to Philadelphia, where he 
died, and was buried by the hand of charity. 

Upon the road-side from Providence to Carbondale, be- 
tween the village of Price and the Lackawanna, can be 
seen an orchard in the meadow where John Vaughn and 
his sons settled in 1797. One of the pioneers in this year 
was Elisha S. Potter. Learning of the rich wild lands 
sold for a song along the Lackawanna, he left his native 
place, AVliite Hall, N". Y., and sought them. Potter 
was the first justice of the peace in the township, and so 
well were the vexatious and harassing duties of the 
magistrate performed by him, that litigating parties were 
generally satisfied with his judgment and decisions. 

Moses Dolph, the grandfather of Edwai-d Dolph, Esq., 
with the Ferrises, made a pitch here in 1798. Of the chil- 
■dren of Dolph, none are now living. 

There were yet no settlers farther up the valley than 
Leuchens, and sparse and poor indeed were the dwellings 
Intervening toward Wyoming. Mt. Vernon, formerly the 
residence of Lewis S. Watres, Esq., was cleared and occu- 
pied in 1812. 

The forbidding aspect of the country along the borders 
■of the forest, the long severe winters, with their pro- 
digious depth of snow, rising often with its long, white 
lines of drift, to the very tops of the cabins, and the 
absence of all roads to communicate with the settlement 
below, imposed upon the inhabitants the most exacting 



272 HISTORY OF THE 

hardships. iMarkings upon trees along the woods directed, 
the path of the pioneer. No "bridge spanned the Lacka- 
wanna at this time other than the one at Capoose and Old 
Forge ; all streams were forded, if passed at all. Once 
swollen bj the lengthened rain or spring freshet, all inter- 
course with the neighborhood was delayed or suspended 
with as much certainty as when the wintery months ren- 
dered crossing formidable. 

The earlier inhabitants enjoyed neither churches, school- 
houses, nor mills. The product of the soil, in the shape 
of corn and rye, was either mashed by the simple stone or 
wooden mortar and pestle, or cooked and eaten whole. 
Bear meat, venison, potatoes, and the scanty salt, com- 
prised the luxuries of the day ; potatoes sometimes became 
so scarce in the spring, that those planted for seed were 
re-dug in a few instances to sustain a family perishing 
with hunger.^ 

For many years, wolves were so bold and disastrous 
in their inroads upon all live stock left exposed at 
night, that cattle and sheep were driven into high, stiong 
inclosures, around which tires were often liglited jifter 
nightfall for greater protection from these abundant 
animals, whose howl, prolonged with terrible distinctness 
and frequency at the very door of the cabin, made up 
one of the exciting features of border life. 

Wilkes Barre, Stroudsburg, and Easton, furnished the 
only stores within a radius of fifty miles, and every 
spring, after a tine run of sap, was the ox-journey under- 
taken thither to exchange the maple sirup and sugar for 
tea, calico, and salt. 

For many years, sweet fern was substituted for tea ; 
browned rye and indigenous herbs appeared on the table 
for coffee. The pine knot, or "candle- wood," as the 
Yankees termed it, cheered the household at night, and 
blended its light with the friendly shadows of the moon. 

' Moses Vaughn, 



LACKAWANNA VALIJY. 9<73 

In 1824, a post-office was established in Blakeley, and 
jN". Cottrill appointed postmaster. 

Between Oly pliant and Mr. Ferris' s, on the back road 
running from Olypbant to Archbald, is seen a small clear- 
ing on the bank of a creek, with no house or trace of a 
cabin, occupied as late as 1820 by an Indian lialf-breed, 
with his squaw and children, skilled as an "Indian doc- 
tor." He never went from home, nor received compensa- 
tion for his cures only in the shape of presents ; and yet, 
in the low moss-covered cabin hid away in the edge of the 
forest, he received many visits from the credulous ones in 
the valley. He died soon afterward. 

Blakeley has no scrap of local history. Originally em- 
bracing the primitive coal-works of the Delaware and 
Hudson Canal Company, its prosperity has steadily kept 
pace with the advancement of this company, until the 
villages of Archbald, Olypbant, and Rushdale, have gath- 
ered a population of hardy, industrious thousands, at 
whose touch tlie anthracite has been awakened from its 
dream and sent its allegiance from the wood-side down to 
the shore of the sea. 

Peckville is prettily situated on the Lackawanna, does 
a snug lumber business, while its inhabitants, character- 
ized by intelligence, good-nature, and liberal attachments, 
never yet have had a single breach in the social relations 
of the neighborhood. 

Jessup, a thriving village in 1855, dwells in the memory 
of the inhabitants of the valley as a place which started 
into life with too sanguine expectations of coal mines, rail- 
roads, and iron developments, and was thus exposed to 
a shock fatal to its existence as a town. 

One of the first churches in the valley was the Blakeley 
church. It was raised and inclosed in March, 1832, and 
remained unfinished for many years. Its completion was 
hastened by the ironical criticisms of a stranger who, upon 
passing it, remarked that he " had heard of the house of 
the Lord, but had never before seen his ho.rn.^'' 

18 



274 HISTOEY OF THE 



YANKEE WAY OF PULLING A TOOTH. 

Long l)elore doctors, armed with lancets and well-filled 
saddle-bags, went forth in the valley, empowered, like 
the beast in Revelations, ' ' to kill a fourth part, ' ' at least, 
of those whom they might meet on the way, the more 
trivial duties of the physician necessarily fell upon the 
patient himself or the skill of some good-natured neigh- 
bor, or perhaps were assumed by some officious doctress, 
whose roots and ^^ yarbs,^^ gathered from meadow and 
mountain, had such wonderful ^^ vartu^^ in their simple 
decoctions that no disease could deny or resist. Tooth- 
ache, rarely treated with the inexorable dignity of turn- 
key or forceps, vexed many a nervous sufferer by its pres- 
ence. Sometimes, however, its court was summarily 
adjourned by a process original, sudden, and cheap. 

Among the settlers in Blakelej, at the time spoken of, 
was a long, lean, bony son of a farmer, troubled with 
that most provoking of all pains, or, as Burns called it — 
"thou h — 11 o' a' diseases,"— the toothache. 

The troublesome member was one of the wide-pronged 
molars, as firm in its socket as if held in a vise. The 
pain was so acute as it ran along the inflamed guns, that 
the usual series of manipulations with decoctions and 
"moments," alternated with useless swearing, failed to 
bring relief to the sufferer. As the ache grew keener 
with torture, a '"'• remejW^ agent Avas suggested and tried. 
One end of a firm hemp string was fastened upon thf^ 
rebellious member, while the other, securely fixed to a 
bullet, purposely notched, was placed in the barrel of an 
old flint-lock musket, loaded with an extra charge of 
powder. When all was ready, the desperate operator 
caught hold of the gun and "let drive." Out flew the 
tooth from the bleeding jaw, and away bounded the mus- 
ket several feet. 

After this new way of extracting teeth had thus been 
demonstrated by one so simple and unskilled in the den- 



LACKAWANXA VAI.LEV. 275 

tal science, it became at once the chosen and only mode 
practiced here for man}- years. 

THOMAS SMITH. 

Among other resolute pioneers who sought the shores 
of the Susquehanna in 1788, appeaj's tlie name of Thomas 
Smith, grandsire of the late T. Smith, Esq., of Abington. 

On the east side of the river below Nanticoke, he laid 
the foundation for his future home. The great ice freshet 
of 1784, which bore down from the upper waters of the 
Susquehanna such vast masses of ice, overflowing the 
plains and destroying the property along the river, swept 
his farm of all its harvest product, leaving it with little 
else than its gullied soil. Hardl}' had his recuperative 
energies again made cheerful his fireside, when tlie 
"pumpkin freshet," as it w\as called, from the countless 
number of pumpkins it brought down the swollen river, 
again inundated its banks, sweeping away houses, barns, 
mills, fences, stacks of hay and grain, catth", flocks of 
sheep, and droves of swine, in the geneial destruction, 
and spreading desolation where but yesterday autumn 
promised abundance. 

Smith, not stoic enough to receive the visits of such 
tloods with indifference, moved up in the "gore" (now 
Lackawanna Township) in 1786, "for," said the old gen- 
tleman, "I want to get above high-water mark." 

His son, Deodat, intermarried with the AllsAvoith iam- 
ily in Dunmore, fiom whom sprung a large family of 
children. 

THE SETTLEMENT OF ABINGTON.' 

Of the highlands of Abington, lying between the Sus- 
quehanna River and the Lackawanna, now rendered 
productiv ^ by a comely and industrious people, little 
was known by the white man at the beginning of the 

' Named from Abington, Connecticut. 



276 IIISTOKY OF THK 

century, else that its wild thresholds were crossed by the 
Indians' pathway from Capoose village to Oquago, N. Y. 

In 1790 a party of trappers, consisting of three persons, 
penetrated the wilderness where now spreads out the rich 
sloping farm of the late Elder Miller, with a view of 
making a settlement, as trapping grew dull and furs be- 
came scarce. Here they felled the underbrush and a few 
of the forest trees, rolled tliem into a cabin roofed with 
boughs, while the great crevices, liberally seamed with 
wedges of w^ood and mud, imparted to the new structure 
a Hottentot appearance. Their provisions having become 
exhausted, and bear meat losing its relish, they shouldered 
their guns and traps before the close of summer and aban- 
doned the enterprise, so that no permanent settlement was 
made until 1794. In the spring of this year Stephen 
Parker, Thomas Smith, Deacon Clark, and Ephraim 
Leach, father of E. Leach, Esq., of Providence, led by 
the intrepid John Miller, on foot, slung their packs and 
guns over their shoulders, and with ax in hand, fiist 
marked and widened this ancient patliway of the wild man 
through the mountain gap, known as Leggett's. This 
gap, in the low range of the Moosic, offered then, as now, 
the only natural eastern outlet to the township of Abing- 
ton. Before the work was completed, it was abandoned 
because of the unvarying obstruction offered by trees to 
the passage of a cart or wagon, and the declivity rising 
from Leggett's Creek abruptly into the very mountain. 
The slighter depression in the range, half a mile south 
of Leggetf s Gap, was then selected for a wagon road, 
even with the disadvantages of its treble height. In 1791 
encroachments were made upon the warriors' path through 
the notch for the passage of a wagon, when the mountain 
road relapsed again into forest. 

Near the location of the present grist-mill of Humphreys, 
the white man's clearing first emerged from the Abing- 
tonian woods. This was made by Ebenezer Leach, who 
afterward sold out his right at this point, and moved 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 277 

down in tlie vicinity of Leggett's Gap, wliere he soon 
"became a tenant of a small, low, log-cabin, remarkable 
only for its rude simplicity. A clearing was niched out 
upon the slope of a hill, where the corn soon sprouted 
from the fresh burned fallow, and the pumpkins, with 
their yellow sides and rounded faces, threw a Yankee 
and domestic look over a region naturally rugged and 
lonely. 

Corn once raised and husked, was either cracked in 
stone or wooden mortars, for the brown mush, or carried 
in back-loads down to the corn-mill in Slocum Hollow, 
to be ground. Sometimes, when the snow was deep or 
drifted, the journey was made to the mill upon the slow 
and cumbrous snow-shoe. 

The utter solitude of Leggett's Gap, interrupted only 
by the screech of the panther or the cry of the wolf, as 
they sprang along its sides with prodigious leaps, made 
even the trip to mill perilous in the cold season of the 
3^ear. 

"Many a time," said Leach, "have I passed through 
the notch, with my little grist on my shoulder, holding in 
my hand a large club, which I kept swinging fiercely, to 
keep away the wolves growling around me ; and to my 
faithful club, often bitten and broken when I reached 
home, have I apparently been indebted for my life." At 
length he hit upon a plan promising exemption from their 
attacks. 

Being told that they were afraid of the sound of ircm, 
he obtained from the valley below, a saw-mill saw. To 
this he attached a strong withe, by which he drew the saw 
by one hand over a trail or road, as yet unconscious of 
the dignity of a sled or a wheel, making a tinkling alter- 
nately so sharp and soft as it bounded over a stone or 
plunged into a root as to inspire them at once with fear so 
great that his passage was only interrupted after this by 
their indignant growls. 

During one of his mill trips to Capoose, a timid fawn 



278 HISTORY OF THE 

being pursued closely by two wolves, ran up to him, 
and placed its head between the legs of Leach to seek 
protection from its half-starved pursuers. This was done 
in a manner so abrupt and hurried, as to first convey to 
the rider a knowledge of the chase. The wolves came up 
with a bound, within a short distance of where the fearless 
arm interposed for the trembling animal, and, giving one 
ferocious view of their white, sharpened teeth, crouched 
away to their retreats. 

So frightened had the fawn become, that not until the 
path oj)ened distinctly ujion the clearing of Leach, could 
it be induced to leave the side of its protector. 

Deer and elk, at that period, thronged along the 
mountains in such numbers that droves often could be 
seen browsing upon saplings or lazily basking in the 
noonday sun. 

Tlie Ifoose, from wliicli the mountain range bordering 
the Lackawanna derived its name of Moosic, were found 
liere in vast numbers by the earliest explorers in the 
Lackawanna Valley. The clearing of Mr. Leach subse- 
quently embraced the Indian salt spring, mentioned 
heretofore. 

Parker and Smith located upon land north of this, while 
Clark, drawn by the delicious landscape of Abington's 
fairest mount, plunged into the woods, where now thrives 
a village honoring his memory, in the preservation of the 
name — Clark's Green. 

On the summit of the hill commanding such a sweep of 
mountain, meadow, lowland, and ravine, as stretches to 
the eye turned to the south or the east, there then stood 
the straight pine and the shaggy hemlock, interspersed 
with the maple and the beech, where was erected the orig- 
inal dwell ng-place of Deacon Clark. It was a substantial 
compact of unhewn logs, notched deep at either end, 
placed together regardless of beauty or timber. The tioor 
came from ask-plank, full of slivers, unaided by the saw 
or plane — the keen ax alone being responsible for 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 2^79 

smoothness and finish. It was, withal, a comfortable af- 
fair built in the wood-side, some 1,300 feet above tide- 
water; but energetic, contented, and industrious, the old 
gentleman passed under its humble roof many a pleasant 
hour in the long evenings of autumn, when the hearth 
glowed with the crackling fire, while his daily duties were 
to give thrift and culture to one of the finest farms in 
Abington. 

The first settlement in Abington was made about the 
year 1793 by Mr. Robert Reynolds, William Wall, and Mr. 
Job Tripp, with a few young men, among whom were 
Ezra Dean, Ezra Wall and Robert Stone. Most of those 
w ho had plunged here in this old forest, w'ere, like those 
who had commenced along the Lackaw-anna, so poor as to 
be unable to pay for their land, until from the soil, they 
could, by their honest industry and frugal management, 
raise the necessary means. Not so, however, with Jt)b; 
he had a little money, and was determined to make the 
most of it. He purchased a grindstone and brought it 
into Abington, w^hich for six years w^as the only one here. 
This he fenced in with stout saplings, allowing no one to 
grind upon it unless they paid him a stipulated sum, and 
turned the stone themselves. This enterprise, although 
it was comprehensive in its design, and brought to his 
barricaded gi'indstone one or two dull axes a w^eek of the 
toiling chopper, could not bring into play all the energies 
of his mind, so he fenced in much of the woods by falling 
trees, for a deer-pen or park, into which, after the deer had 
wandered for his morning browse, or had been driven by 
Job, the passage to the pen was closed, when the deer was 
to be slain, and dried venison and buckskin were to effect 
such a revolution in the commercial aspect of Abington,. 
and he was to be the Midas who had brought it. The 
chase over the acres he had thus fenced proved more in^ 
vigorating to his stomach than beneficial to his pocket,, 
and the project of the old man died with him a. few years 



280 HISTORY OF THE 

later, marked only by the remaining debris of the fence 
yet seen around "Hickory Ridge." 

Elder John Miller, a man alike eminent for his long 
sei- vices as a minister, and his virtues as a man, settled in 
Abington in 1802. He was born February 3, 1775, in 
Windham, Connecticut. Young, hopeful, and robust, he 
emigrated to the inland acres of Abington, where, for 
half a century, identified intimately with its local and 
general history, he gave cheer and character to society 
around him as much as the brook crossing the meadow 
imparts a deeper shade and more luxuriant herbage to 
its banks. The great influence he exerted over the people 
of the township up until the very day of his death, in 
February, 1857, in keeping alive the spirit of improve- 
ment, husbandry, and morality, can yet be observed 
along the farms of his neighbors, in the enterprise, intel- 
ligence, industry, customs, and habits of the yeomanry 
of Abington. Previous to the coming of Mr. Miller to 
"The Beech," as Abington was designated until the for- 
mation of the township in 1806, few had inclined toward 
its rigorous domain. He located upon the spot marked 
and vacated by the trappers twelve years before, pur- 
chased three hundred and twenty-six acres of land for 
forty dollars — $20 in silver, $10 in the customary tender 
of maple-sugar^ and $10 in tin-ware. 

The only store in the county of Luzerne was kept in 
Wilkes Barre by Hollenback & Fisher, offering a variety 
surpassed by the ordinary pack of the modern peddler of 
to-day. At this store, Elder Miller was furnished witn 
the necessary tin, which he manufactured into such ware 
as the county called for. 

Almost simultaneously with his arrival, he began to 
preach the gospel and "turn many to righteousness." 
During this long five-and-rifty years of spiritual labor, he 
married nine hundred and twelve couples, baptized (im- 
mersed) two thousand persons, and preached the enor- 
nious number of eighteen hundred funeral sermons before 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 281 

lie was called to receive his reward on high. It Avas rare 
to witness a funeral in the valley when the elder was in 
his prime, and find absent from the mournful gathering 
his frank, friendly face, ever full of words of comfort and 
kind reminiscence of the dead. 

For a period of twelve years he officiated in the valley 
as the only clergyman laboring here of any denomination. 

Being a practical surveyor withal, there are few farms 
in the northern portion of Luzerne County he did not trav- 
erse while tracing and defining tlieir boundaries. His wife 
— an estimable lady — was the fifth white woman living 
in Abington. Elder Miller, although he held his own plow 
and fed his own cattle, was the great representative of 
Abington, whose various qualifications to counsel and 
console, whose characteristic desire to do good, whose 
benevolence of heart, grave but kind deportment as a man 
of the world or the adviser of his flock, gave him an 
ascendency in the affections of the community attained 
b}" few. 

While he has passed away, he left behind him in manu- 
scripts events of his life, and incidents in the early histoiy- 
and growth of Abington, whose publication could not fail 
to interest all who knew him, and recall to the mind of 
the reader the gray head and kindly greetings of a man 
whose age, calm, deliberate air, whose venerable and un- 
questioned piety, and whose great sympathy in the hour 
of sorrow, made him one of the most remarkable persons 
ever living in Abington. 

This township was the twelfth one formed in the county 
of Luzerne, and is sixty- three years old. At the Coui-t of 
Quarter Sessions, held at Wilkes Barre, August, 1806, 
Abington Avas formed from a part of Tunkhannock, " Be- 
ginning at the southwest corner of Nicholson township, 
thence south nine and three-quarter miles east to Wayne 
County, thence by Wayne County line north nine and 
three-quarter miles," etc. 

The original inhabitants were from Connecticut and 



282 HISTOKY OF TUK 

Rhode Island ; and even now, after the lapse of over half 
a century with its mutations, the stern morality, the hon- 
est industry, and the social virtues literally impressed 
upon the hills of the parent State, are distributed and dis- 
tinguished among their descendants. Although no evi- 
dence of coal or iron exhibits itself within the boundaries- 
of Abington, it furnishes one of the best farming and graz- 
ing areas found in the county of Luzerne. 

The only colored feature in the picture of Abington is a 
colony of negroes, which, in spite of the double disadvan- 
tage of prejudice and hereditary indolence, has drawn 
from the frosty hills thereabout the wherewithal to sus- 
tain animation in a very creditable manner. 

ELIAS SCOTT, THE HUNTER. 

Daniel Scott emigrated to the Lackawanna in 1792. His 
son Elias was widel}^ known throughout the country forty 
years ago, as a successful Nimrod, but the encroachments 
of civilized life crowded the forest world from his reach 
with the same remorseless force that the Indians have 
been rolled up and frenzied to the very base of the Kocky 
Mountains. 

Some years ago, while he was standing near the Wyo- 
ming House, in Scranton, in an apparently thoughtful 
and sorrowful mood, the writer asked him what was the 
matter. 

"Matter ! matter !" he exclaimed, as he looked up with 
a sigh, and pointed his wilted hand and hickory cane 
toward the depots. "See how the tarnal rascals have 
spiled the hunting-grounds where I've killed many a bear 
and deer.'- 

In the autumn months he would take long hunting- 
jaunts, sometimes being absent a week from his home. 
Upon his left hand appeared unmistakable evidence of an 
encounter with a bear many years ago, while out upon 
such an excursion on Stafford Meadow Brook, running 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. I'bJ 

through the southern portion of Scrantoii. Encamped at 
night among the willows on the border of the run, with 
his leather knapsack for a pillow, his belt, keen knife, 
and long, heavy rifle for his companions, where the glare 
of his camp-fire startled the fawn as it browsed along the 
mountain side, or was chased by the wolf or more blood- 
thirsty panther down into the valley, he met old bruin at 
daybreak, as his bearship was gathering beriies for his 
morning luncli. His organs of digestio)i, iiowever, did not 
relish the tickling sensation of the bullet thrown from Scott's 
rifle, and he immediately approached the hunter with all 
the familiarity and warmth of an old friend, until he came 
frightfully close. Scott, declining his advances, retreated 
as rapidly as possible from the wounded and enraged 
brute, and by the frequent punches of his gun, now 
empty and broken, avoided the embraces of the bear. 
Walking backward from the animal, the heel of his boot 
caught in a treacherous root of a tree, and he fell to the 
ground. Before he could raise himself again, commenced 
the death-struggle. Bruin sprang on the hunter with 
such violence as to rupture an internal blood-vessel, and 
for a moment the copious flow of l)lood fiom his mouth 
threatened suffocation. Smarting with the wound of the 
bullet, the bear seized the left hand of Scott in his mouth, 
as it was uplifted to divert attention from his throat, wdiile 
with his right arm he drew from his belt the well-tried 
trusty knife. This he plunged repeatedly into the bear, 
until, exhausted from the loss of blood, he fell dead on 
the mangled hunter. 

Hunters then lived a life of plenty, for game of all 
kinds was so abundant at that period, that in the course 
one year's casual hunting, Scott kilh d one hundred and 
seventy-five deer, five bears, three wolves, and a panther, 
besides wild turkeys in great numbers. He has killed 
and dressed eleven deer in one day, three of them being 
slain at one shot. 

Mr. Scott informed the writer that many years ago, find- 



284 HISTORY OF THE 

ing a rattlesnake den on the upper waters of Spring 
Brook, he killed seven hundred and fifty of the reptiles 
in a single day ; the next day he slew three hundred and 
seventy-five more ; making a total of thirteen hundred 
and twenty-fi'De of the bright occupants of the rocks thus 
fraternizing in this snake castle or rendezvous, and de- 
stroyed by the hand of a single man. He died in the 
summer of 1867. 

EARLY HISTORY OF THE SETTLEMENT OF " DRINKER'S 
BEECH," NOW COVINGTON, 

As the dweller in wigwams turned his footsteps toward 
the setting sun, in search of hunting-grounds better 
stocked than the Ppcono, he left behind him no region 
more wild than the section of country lying between the 
Delaware and the Lackawanna, known as Drinker's 
Beech — a name made popular by the vast number of 
beech-trees growing upon lands owned by Drinker. No 
attention of the white man was directed to the tract until 
1787. During this year, and that of 1791, Henr}^ Drinkei-, 
Sr,, of Philadelphia, father of the late Heniy^ W. and 
Richard Drinker, purchased from the State some twenty- 
five thousand acres of unseated land in the Beech, now 
embraced by Wayne, Pike, and Luzerne counties. An 
effort was made in 1788 to turn this purchase to some 
practical account by opening a liighway through the 
lands. It failed for want of means. Four years later, 
John Delong, a hardy woodsman of Stroudsburg, was 
employed, with other persons, to mark or cut a wagon- 
road to these beechen possessions, from at or near the 
twenty-one- mile tree on the north and south road, which 
was also called the Drinker road, from the fact that it was 
opened principally at the expense of Henry Drinker, Sr., 
who was an uncle of Henry Drinker, Jr., and was withal 
a large landholder in the more northern portion of the 
State. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 2S5 

The road cut by Delong extended in a westerly direc- 
tion, passed tliat romantic sheet of water, Lake Heury, 
crossed the present track of the Delaware, Lackawanna, 
and AVestern Railroad, and thence taking a southerly 
course, terminated on a small branch of the Lehigh, called 
Bell Meadow Brook, near the old Indian encampment 
before mentioned, upon the edge of this run. 

After the return of the choppers, the road grew full of 
underbrush, and forbade passage to all but the hunter 
and his game. In reopening it, in 1821, the name of 
"Henry Drinker, 1792," was found rudely carved upon 
a tree. 

The late Ebenezer Bowman, Esq., of Wilkes Barre, 
was employed to pay taxes upon these lands as late as 
1813, after which time Henry W. Drinker, as the agent, 
offered them for sale and settlement. 

In the spring of this year, Henry Drinker, Sr., with 
his sons, Henry W. and Richard Drinker, visited iStod- 
dartsville — a faint village brought into being by the late 
John Stoddard, who, being an alien, w^as impelled from 
the city of Philadelphia to a tract of land embracing the 
Great Falls on the Lehigh, w^here his lumbering opeia- 
tions eventuated into a village of considerable note in the 
days of the stage-coach over Wilkes Barre Mountain. 

As the southern portion of the Drinker lands lay on 
the- Lehigh and its upper tributaries, about twelve miles 
northeast of Stcddartsville, it was decided to open a com- 
munication to them from that place by a road nearly fol- 
lowing the course of the river, if the same was found at 
all practicable. 

Previous, how^ever, to running any line of road, H. W. 
Drinker determined to ascend that stream in a small canoe 
or skiff, up to the very mouth of Wild Meadow Brook- 
now called "Mill Creek." This the old hunters and 
sturdy woodsmen declared impossible, as the stream in 
one place was completely closed by a compact body of 
drift-wood of very large size and great extent, on the top 



286 HISTORY OF THK 

of which a considerable strata of vegetable and earthy 
matter had accumulated, and brushwood was growing 
luxuriantly ; in other places there were swift and narrow 
rapids, beaver dams, and alder and laurel, twisted and 
interwoven over the very current in such a manner that 
it seemed as if no boat coald ascend the Lehigh, unless 
carried upon shoulders the greater portion of the way, as 
the bark canoes of the Indians were sometimes taken. 
Notwithstanding these discouraging representations, by 
offering high wages, a resolute set of axmen w^ere at 
length engaged to undertake this truly formidable task, 
and after the expenditure of no little energy and money, 
accompanied with some of the hardest swearing among 
the choppers, a boat channel to the desired point was 
opened in the course of two months. 

The first encampment of the Messrs. Drinkers, with 
their choppers, was near the mouth of Wild Meadow 
Brook, where they erected a bark cabin, or shed, open in 
front and at the sides, and sloping back to the ground. 
Each man was furnished with a blanket, in which he 
rolled himself up at night, and Avhile a large crackling 
fire blazed in front of the cabin without, the soft hemlock 
boughs within furnished invigorating repose after the 
fatiguing labors of the day. Now and then, they were 
annoyed b}" the serenade of a school of owls, attracted to 
the camp by the strange glare of the fire, or the piercing 
scream of the sleepless panther, watching the intruders ; 
in damp, rainy weather, by the bite of gnats or " punks," 
as they were termed. Trout and venison were so abund- 
ant around them, that an hour' s fish or hunt supplied the 
€abin for a w^eek with food. 

This encampment was made in 1815, when this new 
avenue along the Lehigh was sometimes used for boating 
and running logs. Provisions and boards were taken up 
the stream from Stoddartsville in a large bateau drawn 
by a tough old mare, hitched to the bow with a plow har- 
ness, and with a setting pole to assist her when there was 



LACKAWANNA VALLKV. 287 

a tight pull, and push en derrlere when the speed slack- 
ened too much to suit the ^ear- Admiral, as the hands 
called the driver and owner of the animal ; sometimes 
swimming through deep beaver-dams, or scrambling 
along the narrow, rocky passes and rapids, to the aston- 
ishment of otters, minks, and muskrats, the soft-furred 
inhabitants of the banks of the stream. 

"And if a beaver lingered tliere, 
It most have made the rascal stare. 
To see the swimming of the mare."' 

In the summer of 1814, these lands were resurveyed 
by Jason Torrey, Esq., of Bethany, Wayne County, into 
lots averaging one hundred acres each. Lots were sold 
at five dollars per acre, on live years' credit, the lirst two 
years without interest ; payment to be made in lumber, 
shingles, labor, stock, jiroduce, or any thing the farmer 
offered or had to spare. 

The first clearing was made in Drinker s settlement, in 
1815, by the late H. W. Drinker, on a ridge of land, 
where he built a log-house, about a quarter of a mile 
south of the spot long adorned by his later residence. 

During the year 1816 a road was surve^^ed and opened 
from the Wilkes Barre and Easton Turnpike, at a point 
about half a mile above Stoddartsville, to the north and 
south road, near the Wallenpaupack bridge, a distance of 
some thirty miles. This road is also known as the old 
Drinker road. 

At the Court of Quarter Sessions, held at Wilkes Barre 
in 1818, Covington was formed out of a part of Wilkes 
Barre, embracing the whole of Drinker' s possession. " In 
honor of Brigadier- General Covington, who gallantly fell 
at the battle of Williamsburg, in Upper Canada, the 
■court call this township Covington." ' H. W. Drinker 
being an intimate friend of General Covington, this name 
Avas given to the new township at his suggestion. 

'Court Records. 1818. 



288 HISTORY OF THE 

Among the earlier setrlers were Jolin Wragg, Micliaeli 
Mitchell, Lawrence Dershermer, Ebenezer Covey, John. 
and William Ross, John and George Fox, John and 
Lewis Stull, Samuel Wilohick, Archippus Childs, John. 
Lafrance, John Gentlm, Henry Ospuck, John Fish, 
David Dale, Edward Wardell, John Thompson, Mathew 
Hodson, Peter Rupert, Wesley Hollister, John Besecker,. 
Jacob Swartz, Nathaniel Carter, Samuel Buck, Richard 
Edwards, John Koons, and Barnabas Carey. 

The PhiladeliDhia and Great Bend Turnpike, originated 
by Drinker, whose name it still bears, was the first to 
gain admittance into the valley from the east as a public 
highway. This turnpike commenced at the Belmont and 
Easton road, some three miles above Stanhope, and ran 
thence a northerly course to the Susquehanna and Great 
Bend Turnpike, at a point near Ithamar Mott's tavern, in 
Susquehanna County. 

The charter for this road, over sixty miles of vast inland 
frontier, was obtained in 1819, but the State, willing to 
foster an enterprise promising to enlarge its development 
and dignity, had so little faith in the civilizing advan- 
tages of this proposed road that it favored it with the 
limited subscription of only $12,000. The balance of the 
stock was taken by the Messrs. Drinkers, Clymer, 
Meredith, and other wealthy landholders. Drinker, who 
located the road, superintended its general construction, 
and was elected president of the company. 

The four villages, Moscow, Dunning, Dalesville, and 
Turnersville, diversifying the agricultural centers among 
the hills and dales of the Beech, are all increasing in- 
population and importance, and yet have ample room for 
expansion. 

SETTLEMENT OF JEFFERSON. 

Although Jefferson Township was only formed in 1836, 
from Providence, its settlement dates back to 1784, when 
Asa Cobb taking advantage of the repose succeeding the 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 289 

Revolution, located liis cabin, and made a clearing at the 
foot of one of the larger and steeper elevations, deriving 
its name from him, Cobb's Mountain, as it sends down 
its steep slope to the old Connecticut road crossing the 
range at this liigh point. This cabin, offering its unwa- 
vering hospitality to friend or foe from Wyoming, was the 
primitive structure in Jefferson, and its former location is 
indicated by the mansion of his great-grandson, Asa Cobb. 
Between the solitary dwelling in Dunmore and the 
clearing at Little Meadows, in Wayne County, a distance 
of sixteen miles eastward, the cabin of Mr. Cobb was 
for many years the only one intervening. In 1795 Mr. 
Potter chopped a place for his home in the extreme 
eastern border of the township and county, upon a trib- 
utary of the Wallenpaupack issuing from Cobb's Pond. 

Jefferson has achieved no local history of interest, yet 
its uplands were once familiar to the savage clans crossing 
from the Delaware to their Wyoming villages. Upon the 
very summit of the mountain, north of the old Cobb 
house, the camp and signal fires of the Indian often rose, 
jis the hunter or warrior gathered around the resinous 
logs, while the Hames of the fire glowing high and red 
among the tree-tops, w^ere visible miles away to the 
eastward. At an early period, a large number of Indian 
implements, to smite an enemy or secure the game, were 
found commingled with the debris of these upraised 
encampments. The township is sparsely settled, and 
generally covered with timber, yet in spite of its altitude, 
it possesses a few farms of surprising fertility and 
beauty. 

The Moosic or Cobb's Mountain, interposing its granite 
bowlders between Jefferson and the Lackawanna, has 
shut off all traces of coal formation, yet a coal mine was 
discovered east of this range, a quarter of a century ago, 
by a voluble, inventive genius, who was promised a farm 
by the owner of the land, should the explorer find coal in 
a certain locality. Making an excavation deep in the 



290 HISTOKY OF THE 

mountain side, he actually toiled weeks in carrying 
upon his shoulder baskets of anthracite for a distance of 
six miles before the blackened appearance of the drift 
gave satisfjictory evidence of the existence of coal. The 
owner of this supposed coal property, always liberal in 
his gifts, cheered by his good luck in the discovery, 
promptly deeded a tract of land, from his many thousand, 
acres, as a reward to the finder, who, like the kind- 
hearted possessor, lived long to join in the laugh at the 
joke. 

The country east and southward of Cobb's, alternating 
with forest and meadow, possesses much of the gloom 
natural to the primitive wilderness in America when 
trodden by the warriors. Wild beasts, to a certain 
extent, inhabit the ravines and woods extending from 
this point to the head-waters of the Lehigh over the 
Shades of Death, on the Pocono, and haunt in places less 
accessible to the footsteps of the hunter, making now and 
then such demonstrations upon the farmers' sheep-pens as 
to satisfy the fastidious that the keen, frosty air of the 
mountain imparts a keener whet to the appetite than rum. 

The winter of 1835 was one of great length and severity, 
from the vast quantity of snow which had fallen. It lay 
upon the ground for many weeks four and five feet in 
depth on the level, while drifts, crossed only upon snow- 
shoes, often rose to a prodigious height. Game perished 
on the mountains in large numbers, and wolves even sought 
the settlements for food. A gray, lean wolf, thus impelled 
by hunger, found its way into the barn-yard of the late 
John Cobb, Esq., in Jefferson, during the winter, while 
the members of the family, with the exception of Mrs. 
Cobb, were absent from home. The commotion among 
the sheep in the yard, some distance from the house, 
attracted her attention. With a heroism that rose instinct- 
ively with the occasion, Mrs. Cobb, though naturally a 
mild and slender lady, caught the pitchfork in her hand 
and hurried forth to repel or dispatch the intruder. This 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 291 

was comparatively an easy matter for the brave woman, 
as the brute, in its starved condition, iiad become enfee- 
bled, and, although for a moment it turned its lurid eye 
and long, white, keen teeth upon the assailant, it soon fell 
a trophy to a woman whose sterling courage, thus dis- 
played, exhibited in a broader and better light the require- 
ments and qualitications of the earlier women of the coun- 
try. For the scalp of the wolf, Luzerne County paid Mrs. 
Cobb the usual reward or bounty at that time of ten 
dollars. 

There lived upon a time in Jeffeison a man of fair men- 
tal endowments, upright and honorable, glib in speech, 
of unmeasured egotism, whose ambition led him to hope 
for a division of the great county of Luzerne and the selec- 
tion of the green plateau of Jiis plantation for the county 
seat. Visions of court-house, jail, and prominence, rose 
before him as he diffused his convictions among all par- 
ties throughout the cf)unty with a persistency worthy of 
success, urging the cutting in twain of its ancient bounda- 
ries for the especial good of the Beech and Jefferson, offer- 
ing land gratuitously for the public buildings ; and, as a 
final unanswerable counterpoise, the old gentleman, in his 
enthusiasm for his favorite scheme, exclaimed to the 
writer, "Rather tlian see the thing fail, I would consent 
to act as judge myself the first year or two for nothing." 

CHASED BY A PANTHEK. 

To the east of Cobb's clearing, eight or ten miles upon 
the old Connecticut road, nestles down at the foot of a long 
hill a tract of low, swampy land, known in the ancient 
Westmoreland Records by the name of " Little Meadows." 
Two natural ponds, flooding hundreds of acres, lying a 
mile apart, divided by a strip of wild meadow-land grown 
over with coarse grass and willows, afforded the earliest 
pioneers to Wyoming a place to cheer their cattle Avith 
food, and led to the adoption of the name. The first set- 



292 HISTORY OK THE 

tlemeiit in the county of Wayne, aside from that upon tlie 
Delaware, was made upon the edge of this meadoAv. 
From this pLace to the Paupack settlement, a distance of 
less than a dozen miles, stretched the woods, unbroken save 
by a single farm-house, kept for a tavern, remarkable for 
its neatness within, and its Slovenish appearance without. 
A portion of this distance is swamp-land, grown full of 
alder, laurel, beech, and the long, wrinkled hemlock, and 
is a continuation of the swamp or ''Shades of Death," 
extending their desolating aspect for a great space along 
the Pocono. 

Midway through this swamp flows the Five-mile Creek 
in the most sluggish manner, from which the land upon 
either side of it gradually ascends for a distance of three 
or four miles. 

In the autumn of 1837, while the writer was passing 
from this tavern homeward on one bright, frosty mid- 
night, accompanied by a friend, jnst as the clearing 
receded from the view, the horse and ourselves were 
startled by the loud cry of a panther, coming from tlie 
thicket along the road-side. The dry limbs cracked as the 
enormous creature sprang into the road behind us, and it 
is difficult to tell whether horse or the whitened di'ivers 
most appreciated the perilous condition. The moon shone 
bright down among the opening tree -tops, as over the 
road, frozen, steep, and stony, trembled the slender 
vehicle. Deeper and farther the forest closed up behind 
us, leaving little chance for us to reach Little Meadows in 
safety. Turning the eye backward, and the approaching 
form of the panther could be seen within a stone's throAV, 
leaping along at a rate of speed corresponding with our 
own. The silence of the woods, stretching back in sucii 
utter loneliness, the sound of the nervous horse-feet, the 
jar of the wagon over the stones, the terribly distinct yelh^ 
of the pursuing animal breaking in upon the surrounding- 
gloom, and our own defenseless condition, made such an 
impression upon boyhood — that its mention here may seent 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 293 

a wide digression — it never was effaced or forgotten. We 
shot down hill after hill, around curve after curve, with 
fearful rapidity, without uttering a word or hardly draw- 
ing a breath, fearing every moment that the Avagon would 
either prove treacherous to its trust, or that every leap of 
the panther would interrupt our ride. For three miles, 
down to the brook and over it, did the yellow beast follow 
up our trail, uttering as it came its shrill, appalling cries 
at intervals of every minute. Crossing the creek on a 
rude, log bridge here thrown across the stream, the horse, 
conscious of the danger, sniffed instinctively, hurried up 
the ascent witli all possible speed, while the panther, 
slackening his pace perceptibly and ceasing his cries, led 
us to believe that the chase was abandoned. Not so, 
however. As we emerged from tlie woods into the edge 
of Little Meadows, where counige rose to a wonderful 
])itch, we gave one " hollo !" to ascertain the whereabouts 
of the animal, hesitating whether to leave or spi-iug upon 
us. Hardly had the echo of our voices returned from tlie 
wood-side before the replying scream of the panther 
reached us, in accents so distinct and appalling as to 
remove all desire or effort to hold further intercourse 
witli liis panthership. 

x\.s for the panther, which had accompanied us six or 
eight miles during our moonlight flight, with no benevo- 
lent intentions, we took leave of his society with less 
regret than we had left the fair ones at the homestead on 
the Paupack. 

DUNNING. 

Madison Township, embracing an area of twenty-eight 
square miles, much of which is timbered with the knotted 
hemlock or the smoother beech or maple, was formed 
from Covington and Jefferson in 184o. 

Pleasant Valley, lying ten miles east of Scranton, on 
the Delaware. Lackawanna, and Western Railroad, 
within this township, is a deep vale scooped out of the 



294 HISTUKY OF THE 

hills for the passage of Roaring Brook, in its descent to 
the Lackawanna, wheiv the village of Dunning animates 
the spirit of industry, and carries on a profitable traffic 
with the people of Drinker's Beech, Like the Lacka- 
wanna region, this short and narrow valley bears evidence 
of once having been a lake, whose waters, enlivened by 
fish and water-fowl, were liberated with heavy murmur 
through the fractured mountain below. About one mile 
west of the village, "Barney's Ledge," ^ a long, bold 
bending of vertical rock, rises up some five hundred feet 
at the door of Cobb's Gap, with rugged outlines, and, 
stretching its strong arms right and left, half encircles the 
village in its embrace. The old Drinker turnpike, once 
merry with the passing stage-coach, finding its way from 
Providence to Stroudsburg, and the light track of the 
Pennsylvania Coal Company, pass through it. 

Hunter'' s Bange, once famed for its trout-fishing and 
Avhisky, lies in tlie vicinity. Although the rough sides 
of Pleasant Valley, capable of great cultivation and 
production, if brought out by patient toil, are marked by 
an eruption of stumps wherever cleared, there is a fresh 
business air about the village, with its vast leather-trade 
and lumbering interests, that arrests the attention of th'.> 
passer, and that gives assurance that when the scalping- 
ax disperses the forest farther from the brook, it will, in 
point of thrift and enterprise, excel many older towns 
upon the line of this great locomotive road. 

Hon. Abram B. Dunning, who i-epresented Luzerne 
County in the Pennsylvania Legislature in a manner 
so eminently satisfactory to his constituents during the 
years 1852-3-4, as to be thrice elected — a compliment 
seldom paid in this county — has grown up with the place, 
and given it a name and an impetus alike permanent and 
favorable in its character. Dunning enjoys the advan- 
tages of a depot, two stores, post-office, two hotels, and a 

1 Named from the late Barney Carey, who for many years kept a toll-gate on 
the Drinker turnpike, within view of this ledge. 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 295 

large tannery of Engine Sindcis, able to convert quarter 
of a million's worth of raw hides each year into ready 
leather. 

CAKBONDALE. 

Carbondale Township, underlaid with rich seams of coal, 
lies on the Lackawanna, twenty-four miles from its mouth, 
some 700 feet above the level at its confluence, and was 
formed from Blakeley and Greenfield, in April, 1831. On 
the eastern slope of the Moosic, near the present location 
of Waymart, Captain George Rix, whose name lives in 
the notch of the mountain, chose a dwelling-place, before 
Waymart had even a name. This led to the settlement of 
Ragged Islands (now Carbondale) by David Ailsworth in 

1802. He was a farmer from Rhode Island. He fixed his 
habitation in the spring of this year upon the spot known 
since 1830 as the "Meredith Place," cut away and 
burned the forest for a single crop of corn he planted 
and secured by his little cabin : in the fall returned for his 
family. The backwoods became his permanent abode in 

1803, and by the aid of his trap, gun, and new land pro- 
ductions, he lived a life of contented obscurity. His self- 
reliant wife wove and spun eveiy yard of clothing material 
worn, other than that manufactured from furs and skins, 
secured with little trouble from tiie bold inhabitants of 
the woods. Franklin Ailsworth ascended the Lacka- 
wanna fi'om Capoose, to share the fortune of his father, in 
1806. A daughter of Mr. Ailsworth, 66 years old, lamil- 
iarly called " Aunt Ruth Waderman," who accompanied 
her mother here in 1802, yet lives above Carbondale. 
The first white child born in Carbondale was born on the 
Meredith Place in 1806. The second family that ventured 
into the Carbondale wilderness was James Holden, who 
in 1805 chopped and logged a piece of land nt^ar Ailsworth. 
He abandoned it the second year, and moved into the 
Lake country. 

Peter Waderman and James Lewis moved upon 



296 HISTORY OF TIIK 

Ragged Island in 1807. Lewis abandoned his clearing 
the second year, while Waderman reared up a bevy of 
sturdy youngsters. The attire of Mr. Waderman, when 
full, w^as imposing and unique. A bear-skin worn for a 
coat, the fore-legs serving for the sleeves, a fawn-skin 
vest, buck-skin pants, and a raccoon cap, with the tail 
hanging behind when worn, set off his tall figure to 
great advantage, and when he visited Capoose, to vote or 
carry his grist to Slocum' s mill, children stood dismayed 
or fled to their mothers at his approach. IS'ear where the 
toll-gate stands, below Carbondale, Roswell B. Johnson, 
from New York, who had married a Boston lady, took 
possession of land covered with the tall hemlock and the 
low thicket in 1809, and lived upon it for five years. 
The "big flats," now occupied by a portion of Carbon- 
dale, was never disturbed until 1809. During this year, 
George Parker and his son-in-law, Winley Skinner, both 
more familiar with the rifle than the ax, cut away the 
timber for a corn-patch early in the spring of 1809. A 
small, one story log-hut, warmed by the abundance of 
fuel lying at the door, supplied them with shelter the few 
months they inhabited it, w^hen they abruptly withdrew 
from the place, in despair of ever seeing it emerge into 
civilization. The green logs soon rotted down, and the 
young saplings again triumphed in the place where the 
cabin stood. 

In 1810 Christopher E. Wilbur, an ingenious wheel- 
wright from Dutchess County, N. Y., became a resident 
of the farm now occupied by Horace Stiles. He emigrated 
here to manufacture wooden wheels, then used along the 
borders for spinning wool and flax, worked by the foot or 
hand. There was no other wheelwright along the Lacka- 
wanna other than him, and so clever was his hand in 
working wood for the use of the busy housewife, that 
every fireside in the valley was gladdened b}^ the hum of 
his wheels. In 1812 he erected a miniature corn or grist- 
mill upon the stream where he lived. It had no bolt, and 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 297 

"but a single i un of stone diversified its work ; corn, 
crushed by its rudely wield<'d power, had to pass through 
a common seive hef'ore being fit for use. Mr. Wilbur 
was a plain, practical man, and his house afforded a place 
for a scliool and meetings as early as 1813 ; Elder John 
Miller and Mr. Cramer alternately itinerated their diverse 
doctrines at this point once a month. 

Carbondale, by its origin and nature a mining village, 
as indicated by its name, owes the vigor of its develop- 
ment to the genius of William and Maurice Wurts. In 
1814-15, these true pioneers in the valley, with compass 
and pick, a knapsack of provisions slung over their 
shoulders, penetrated and bivouacked along the eastern 
range of the Moosic, exploring every gorge and opening 
favoring the exit of coal, two bodies of Avhich they found, 
and uncovered a few years later, by the aid of Mr. Nobles 
and Mr. AVilbur, one at Carbondale, under the bluff, on 
the western edge of the Lackawanna, the other on a strip 
of half-cleared land in Providence, since known as the 
Anderson farm. The wild land about Carbondale, orig- 
inall}^ owned by an Englishman named Russell, living at 
Sunbury, came into possession of William and Maurice 
AYurts at the time of these explorations. 

In November, 1822, these men, in quest of honest 
reward for their labors, cheered onward by no friendly 
hand from the inhabitants of the upper or lower valley, 
laughed at for their perseverance in digging among rock 
and rattlesnakes for naught, erected a long, low log- 
house for the joint occupancy of themselves and their 
workmen. Up until this time but a single horse-path, 
showing its narrow and indefinite outline by marks upon 
trees, led to the site of Carbondale, and j)assed through 
Rixe's Gap to Belmont and Bethany. 

Dundaff — named from Lord Dundaff, of Scotland — 
became a place of some note in the backwoods before 
Carbondale enjoj'ed even the honor of an appellation. 
Redmond Conyngliani, an uncle of our excellent judge of 



298 HISTORY OF THE 

the county of Luzerne, purchased the land where the 
village now stands in 1822, laid it out for a town, whose 
growth was to be stimulated by the rugged agricultural 
developments of the country, and by the considerable 
travel on the Milford and Owego turnpike, which passed 
through the place as a stage route. Three or four small 
houses stood here before this time. 

The settlement expanded into a village of &uch prospect^ 
that Mr. Stone Hamilton started a democratic weekly 
newspaper, called the Dimdaff Republican^ the first 
number of which was issued in February, 1828. It was 
the only paper, with the exception of one or two pub- 
lished in Wilkes Barre at this time, issued within the 
county of Luzerne. 

James W. Goff, Esq,, afterward sheriff of the county, 
raised the first frame-house in Carbondalej in October, 
1828. For a series of years the development of the 
village, enriched by its subterranean possessions, sur- 
passed in promise and rapidity every settlement within 
the county. Churches were built, a railroad, licensed by 
mountain planes, led its iron way to the waters of the 
Dyberry, and a spirit of thrift blended its impulse with 
the sober notions of the farmers of the surrounding town- 
ships, hitherto poor and embarrassed. Awakened thus 
by the activity of these brothers, whose spirit and effort 
unlocked tlie mountains of the Lackawanna, and gave 
luster to a name unhonored in their earlier achieve- 
ments, the village, deriving nurture from the operations of 
the company, of which they were the organic head, 
compares, favorably to-day with the towns of the lower 
valley. 

The principal persons who found remunerative occu- 
pation in the new, prosperous coal settlement, prior to 
1832, were James Dickson, Charles Smith, Thos. Youngs, 
Stephen Mills, Dr. Thomas Sweet, Salmon Lathrop, John 
M. Poor, Samuel Ray nor, Stephen Rogers, D. Yarington, 
Esq., R. E. Marvin, Henry Johnson, Hiram Frisby,. 



LAOKAAVANNA VALLKY. 



299 



James Aichbald, H. Hackley, John McCalpine, and E. 
M. Town send. 

Carbondale is now an incorporated city, rugged some- 
what in the general style of its architecture, and yet from 
the uplifted anthracite within and beyond its boundaries, 




FIRST BAPTIST CHUIlOll 



it gives employment, and even a compai-ative competency, 
to its thousands of inhabitants. 

It abounds in churches, the first of which, the First 
Presbyterian church, was erected in 1829. However 



300 HISTORY OF THE 

counter and diverse may be the religious convictions 
of the mass, ample scope for their harmonions enjoyment 
is here found in the different churches, representing every 
Christiaii denomination. 

The oldest coal-mines of the Delaware and Hudson 
Canal Company are located at this point, which was for 
many years the western terminus of their railroad leading 
to the canal at Honesdale. The first car-load of coal 
passed over this road, October, 9, 1829. 

Maurice and William Wurts, in 1816, attempted to 
transport a sample of coal across the mountain to the 
Paupack waters upon sleds, from a superficial body they 
had uncovered in Providence township, some five miles 
above Slocum Hollow, and failed. After this route was 
found to be impracticable, the irrepressible energy of 
these men turned to the Carbondale placer, where the first 
sled load of stone-coal from the Lackawanna Valley left 
its bed, by the creek side, and was floated to Phila- 
delphia upon rafts ; and while its claimed attributes for 
heat, brought jeers from the passer to its patrons, it wore 
and won its way into favor after many struggles, as the 
stream, sometimes baffled in its upper waters, becomes 
serene and goes unwearied to the sea. 

APPEARANCE OF THE VALLEY IN 1804. 

A brief retrospective view of Lackawanna Valley, as 
it appeared to the eye in 1804, while shut out from the 
great world almost as much as the Icelander among his 
glacial peaks, will have a local interest, enhanced by the 
fact that the reader is indebted for the faithfulness of the 
picture to the memory of the late Elder John Miller. 

In searching for material for publication, the writer 
visited the elder in May, 1856. He was found alone in 
the plowed field planting corn, dropping the seed from 
a huge, leather bag, made from a boot-leg, hung by his 
side ; and although he then was eigldy-one years of age, 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 301 

his extraordinary powers of vitality enabled him to fill 
the farmer's place as ably as one forty years his junior. 
Leaning his right arm upon his hoe, and successively 
raising handfuls of corn, to be dropped again in the bag 
through his fingers, he stood affixed for two long hours, 
describing the appearance of tlie country as he saw it sixty- 
four years before, interwoven with the remembrance of 
lively gossip and anecdote. It was done with, that sober 
good sense and cheerful temper that always gave his con- 
versation a charm suited to every taste, circle, and place. 
The first house standing near the confluence of the 
Lackawanna with the Susquehanna, at this period (1804), 
was that of Ishmael Bennett, a blacksmith. He was a 
great Indian fighter and hater, having witnessed many of 
the cruelties practiced by them after the battle across the 
river. A huge elm-tree, seen a little east of the railroad 
depot at Pittston, indicates the original location of his 
dwelling. On the farm, now known as Bainum's, a little 
pretension in the potash and agricultural line was made 
by James Brown. Captain Isaac Wilson, who mai ried a 
daughter of John Phillips, owned a narrow patch of land 
immediately above. Just as the road, skirting along the 
western border of the Lackawanna, below Old Forge, 
emerges from the strip of wood into the sandy plain, 
stood the residence of that old sunburnt veteran, Ebenez( r 
Marcy. In 1778, he was engaged in the Indian battle, 
and his wife was among the fugitives who fled froni 
Wyoming on the evening of the memorable 3d of July of 
this year. The tourist, as he passes down the valle}-, 
can not fail to observe, as he passes over the Lackawanna 
bridge, below the rapids, a deep, ragged, narrow passage 
cat through a rock, that here turns aside the waters of the 
stream as they come fretting and chafing over the rocky 
bed, like an ill-curbed colt. This channel, dug out as 
early as 1774 for mill purposes, now conveyed to the forge 
below motive power from the stream above. At this 
forge, standing a little below the bridge spoken of, Dr. 



302 HISTORY OF THE 

Wm. Hooker Smith and James Sutton lived and manu- 
factured iron. Opposite this point lay the farm since 
known as Drake's, on which a cabin had been fashioned 
by Hermans, who claimed the land, while on the adjoining- 
clearing there lived Deodat Smith, father of the late Thos. 
Smith, Esq., of Abington. 

An old gentleman named Cornelius Atherton resided at 
Keys or Reiser's Creek. ^ He was a blacksmith by trade ; 
and it is claimed that the first clotJiiefs shears in the 
United States were made by him in Connecticut. His 
son Jabez was shot in the Indian battle at Wj^oming, the 
bullet passing through the femur., or thigh-bone, without 
a fracture. One of those tragic episodes so frequent in 
the earlier history of AVyoming was enacted upon this 
creek, at the present location of Taylorsville. The day 
after the Wyoming massacre, the whites remaining un- 
harmed fled from the j^lains of Wyoming by every path 
leading from it. To escape the knife or the merciless ax, 
homes were hurriedly left, and all fled toward the Dela- 
ware for safet3\ A party of six persons, two men, their 
wives and children, were thus urging their single yoke of 
oxen over this route, when they entered the glen with 
comparatively little apprehension, as the savages were 
supposed to be present at their bloody carnival below. 
Hardly had a draught been taken from the creek before 
the whoop and uplifted tomahawk announced the presence 
of the savages as they sprang from the ambuscade. Before 
the wliites could raise their guns upon their foes, and 
defend their families or themselves, one man fell by the 
dash of the tomahawk, while the other darted away in 
the forest with such rapidity, as to draw away entirely 
from the rest of the party the notice of the pursuing 
Indians. It was now a moment big with peril. To flee 
at once was the only hope to escape captivity, or perhaps 
a lingering, barbarous death. Each mother gathered a 

' This creek took its name from Timothy Keys, once living here, who was killed 
by the Indians in 1778. 



LACKAWANNA VALLRY. 303 

child to her bosom, and instinctively hurried awaj^ in the 
deep, dark thicket of willows ))ordering this stream, as it 
liowed along that swamjiy lowland. From the knife, 
already gleaming and tried upon those they had loved so 
long, these bold women, with their nursing babes, suc- 
cessfully escaped. Although the stern wilderness frowned 
before them, and their assailants were prowling in their 
rear, they left their hiding-i)lace at night ; and, creeping 
from bush to bush along the Lackawanna, continued 
tlieir journey over Cobb Mountain toward the settle- 
ments upon the Delaware. They subsisted upon roots 
and berries — the manna of the wilderness — and at night 
huddling together under some friendly tree, found wild- 
dreaming repose. 

After passing every danger and enduring every hard- 
ship, heart-heavy, stripped, and starved, yet trusting in 
God, the}^ arrived at the village of Stroudsburg in safety. 

The Indians, as they returned from the chase, with the 
warm and dripping scalp in their hands, finding their 
victinis beyond reach, cut out the lolling tongue of one of 
the oxen for a roast, leaving the other undisturbed, in 
which condition they were found the next day by some 
of the escaping settlers. 

Along the path from this creek to Providence the woods 
retained their native aspect until the highland farm, now 
known as "Uncle Joe Griffin's," came in view. Upon 
this plateau, where the rich oatlines of the Indian region 
]ose up in every form of beauty, stood a log-cabin, Avith 
its loof running to the very ground — better to withstand 
the storms of winter. Reuben Taylor lived here at this 
time. 

Mr. Lafronse had a possession right immediately above 
Taylor's, while Joseph Fellows, Sen., who came to the 
valley in 1796, had made a permanent residence on the 
slope of the hill, near the present family mansion of Turvy 
Fellows, Esq. Subsequently he received a commission 
as a justice of the peace, an office which he tilled with 



304 HISTORY UF THE 

ability and great satisfaction. His nearest neighbor up 
the valley was Goodrich. 

Hyde Park, as a village, had no existence, and but a 
single cleared acre, half-hidden in the green park on all 
sides surrounding it, was inhabited. Upon the site of the 
residence of Hon. Wm. Merrifield, stood, in 1804, the 
unhewn-log habitation of Elder Wm. Bishop, who, as 
early as 1795, officiated as the first stationed minister in 
Providence. 

With the exception of the "Indian clearing," and a 
little additional chopping around it, the central portion of 
Capoose Meadow, or Tripp's Flats, was covered with 
tall white pines. The road lay along the brow of the hill 
for nearly half a mile from the house of Bishop, when it 
reached the two-roomed log-tavern of Stephen Tripp, who 
at this time had a large distillery operating here. 

Tripp was a man of singular evenness of temper. He 
never became boisterous or belligerent. The nearest 
approach to it occurred here at his ta'cern. A stranger 
"Stopping at his house, finding the landlord agreeable and 
full of social qualities, ventured to ask his name. He 
was told it was Tripp. "Trip, Trip, is it '^" said tlie 
stranger, pleased with the reply; "that is a capital, 
capital name I know, for I have a dog by that name— and 
' Trip ' is a good dog !" 

Entering a small, dark cabin, near where now lives Ira 
Tripp, Esq., there sat a short, gray-headed man, more 
cheerful and communicative than his associates of the day,, 
whose earliest life was full of incident and hardships, and 
who emigrated from Rhode Island at the time of the for- 
mation of Luzerne County, in 1786. This was the father 
of Stephen. 

About midway between this point and the Lackawanna 
River, a little to the northeast of the "Diamond mines,'"' 
a small tract of rich land had been purchased by Lewis 
Jones from Wm. Tripp and John Gifford — a son-in-law 
of Isaac Tripp — who lived here at this time. Jones's farm 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 305 

included that intervale where yet lies the debris of an 
old still-hoQse. John Staples occupied the Widow 
Griffin farm — adjacent to that of Alderman Griffin — 
which soou after passed into the hands of Mathias Hol- 
lenback. 

The Von Storch property, originally passing from the 
proprietors of the town of Capoose to Dean, and from him 
to Nathan Roberts, for a barrel of whisky, came into the 
hands of H. C. L. Von Storch in the spring of 1807, 
before coal lands had a name or a value in the valley. A 
strip of pines lay between the clearing of Von Storch and 
the cabin of Enock Holmes, standing on the site of the 
village of Providence. Where now stands the cottage of 
Daniel Silkman, lived Henry Waderman, who, as late as 
1810, when the census was first taken in the valley by 
the Hon. Charles Miner — a gentleman to whom all ac- 
corded the possession in a high degree of those frank, 
pleasing, and intellectual qualities, which seldom fail to 
secure the regard of every one — occupied the only dwell- 
ing he found aboce Providence. Mr. Miner recollected 
this more distinctly from the fact of staying over night 
with Waderman, whom he found cheerful, sociable, and 
fond of relating stories of Bonaparte. 

Upon the flats, now known as the Rockwell farm, dwelt 
James Bagley, whose porchless abode gave welcome 
shelter to children, cats, and dogs. Bagley' s ford way 
crossed the Lackawanna, near his dwelling. 

At the mouth of Leggett's Creek, Selali Mead cultivated 
the narrow intervale, while Mr. Hutchins occupied a 
patch of land rising up from the brook, known now as the 
McDaniels' farm. The adjacent clearing, thick with 
stumps, marked the well-chosen location of Ephraim 
Stevens, who, bending and white with the years of almost 
a century, passed away a short time since, leaving hin 
estate to his son Samuel, subsequently deceased. 

Half a mile beyond, on the farm so long rendered pro- 
ductive by Colonel Moses Vaughn, one of the worthy 



306 HISTORY OF THE 

descendants of Captain John Vaughn, lived John Tripp, 
The orchard spread over the meadow crossed by tlie 
Delaware and Hudson Railroad, on the western bank of 
the Lackawanna, planted by Captain Vaughn, denotes the 
place where he and his sons long drew nurture from the 
soil. Upon the Decker farm lived Wm. McDaniels, whose 
sluggish ideas of agriculture governed each successive 
inheritance until the property came into possession of 
Messrs. Pancost and Price, two Philadelphia gentlemen 
of education and fortune. 

The village of Price, peopled by hardy and industrious 
Germans, stands upon a portion of the Decker farm. The 
first clearing made in Blakeley turned to practical account, 
was that of Timothy Stevens, who, about the close of the 
Revolution, began a chopping on the farm known as the 
Mott farm, where he "logged-off" land for a corn and 
potato patch, which yielded abundance to the wants of 
his family. 

Nicholas Leuchens, the erratic genius before mentioned, 
lived at the present sire of Peckville. Along the forests 
of the Lackawanna, above Leuchens, the ax had rung, 
only to mark the course of tlie trapper or trader coming 
from Pleasant Mount, and but a single hut or cabin stood 
between. Blakeley, Carbondale, Rushdale, Archbald, 
and Jessup, had no impulse even toward a settlement, 
nor was there a township formed in the valley north of 
Providence; a "chopping," with the fallen pines di- 
vested of their lesser limbs by fire, edged its way into 
the green woods, where in latter years the "Meredith 
Cottage," made rural and attractive by warm liospitality, 
stood and still stands, to gladden the wayside. 

Having now reached the extreme point of the valley, 
on the west side of the Lackawanna, as far as settled in 
1804, a glance of the eastern border, less sought after for 
a dwelling-place or heritage at this time, will be as briefly 
given. There are yet a few remaining who can bear tes- 
timony to the rugged, narrow path along the stream. 



LACKAWANNA VALLKV. 807 

overhung with interlocking trees, which led its way from 
Ragged Island to Capoose, with only here and there a 
break in the woodland for the occasional occupant. Upon 
the farm known as the Dolpli farm, in Olyphant, lived 
Moses Dolph, father of Alexander and grandfather to 
the present owner, Edward Dolph ; immediately below, 
Samuel Ferris, father of Samuel, William, and John, Avon 
by hard toil a resting-place for his young family. From 
the lands of Ferris it was nothing but woods, broken 
only witliin a single mile by the blackened fallow of 
John Secor, whose cabin, built from logs of great strength 
and size, served to dispel all fears inspired by wolves 
never slumbering about the clearing after nightfall. Be- 
tween Secor' s and Dunmore, two miles away, two rights 
had been improved respectively by Charles Dolph and 
Levi Depuy. 

The Corners (Dunmore) had two houses only— the 
tiivern of AVidow Als worth and the residence of David 
Brown. Between this point and Slocum Hollow, a log- 
house of John Carey's, with its huge, stone chimney and 
mud-chinked sides, had risen from the clearing, and the 
bevy of children issuing from the door to wonder at the 
occasional passer, or building dams of mud across the 
stream running at the door, made up the daily picture of 
domestic life at this solitary habitation between these two 
named places. 

At Griffin's Corners, there lived an old man named 
Atwater, while on the Dings or Whaling propei-ty (now 
Green Ridge, where the Hon. George Sanderson has 
brought a town into being), stood by the brook- side the 
rude yet hospitable dwelling of Conrad Lutz, occupied 
by his son John. The old Connecticut road, familiar to 
the Wyoming pioneers, folloAving tlie Indian trail, came 
into Capoose Meadow, and crossed the Lackawanna at 
Lutzs ford way. This fording-place. deriving its name 
from Mr. Lutz, was traversed from 1769 until 1826. Tall 
pines, alienated from Indian tenure, crowded upon the 



308 HISTORY OF THE 

road leading to Slocum Hollow, where Ebeiiezer and 
Benjamin Slocum, with their less than a dozen employees, 
enumerated the entire white inhabitants of this tranquil 
and independent settlement. 

James Abbott, whose iron energy had animated the 
glen of Roaring Brook, resided on the bank of Stafford 
Meadow Creek. Some two miles below Slocum Hollow, 
a tract of land improved as early as 1776, by Comer 
Philips, was tenanted jointly by David Dewee and David 
David. The latter met with a sudden death a year or 
two later. Engaged at the break of day in prying up a 
rock for a hearth-stone, he was mistaken by Dewee, in 
search of game, for a beast of prey, and shot dead upon 
the spot. His widow subsequently married Mr. Abbott. 

John Scott, lather of the great hnnter Elias, lived upon 
the farm lying farthest down in the township of Provi- 
dence. His nearest neighbor was Joseph Knapp, a brave 
old revolutionary soldier, spurning alike title or preten- 
sion. At the surrender of Burgoyne he received a wound 
long incapacitating him from active service. After tlu^ 
declaration of peace he resumed farming in Columbia 
County, New York, until 1790, when he emigrated to tlie 
valley and settled in the " gore." ^ 

His son Zephaniah, attaining eighty years, 3^et lives 
among us. Much of his early life was spent in hunting 
and trapping various animals inhabiting the valley over 
half a century ago. Sometimes during the autumn months 
lie was out alone for weeks, engaged in hunting, subsisting 
on the trophies of his gun, and finding on friendly leaves 
and boughs his only bivouac. He has kept a curious 
record of the number of bears and other Avild animals he 
killed upon the LackaAvanna ; of the time and manner of 
their capture, with their respective weight, in a work 
of over one hundred folio pages ; a work probably 

' The gore was a narrow strip of land, lying between Pittston and Providence. 
It is now Lackawanna Township, set off as an electoral district, Feb. 25, 1795 ; 
into a township at the November sessions, 1838. 



LACKAWANNA VArXEY. 309 

unmatched in novelty and interest by any manusci'ipt of 
tlie kind found in the country. He lias given it the in- 
imitable title of " The Leather Shirty 

This enumeration, embracing no paiticular creed nor 
politics, comprised the entire inhabitants of the valley 
four and sixty years ago. To many who may peruse these 
pages the foregoing particulars may seem out of place, 
but to those who visit the Lackawanjia Valley, or make 
it their home, it will not be amiss to thus catch a retro- 
spective glance of the days gone by, so as better to 
contemplate tlie changes years have wrought, and judge 
from the past how rapid and marvelous will be the pros- 
perity of the future. Six years later the census was 
taken by the Hon. Charles Miner. AYithin the Lackawan- 
nian district existed but two townships, Pittston and 
Providence, the first having a population of 694, the last 
589, or a total population of 1,283 for the entire valley in 
1804. Abington had an inhabitancy of 511. 

The same territory, divided and sub-divided into cities, 
townships, and boroughs, will furnish in 1870, accord- 
ing to the same ratio of inci'ease, a population of one 
Jiundred thousand. Diffused along its living border, it 
falls to-day little short of eighty thousand, and a more 
enterprising, intelligent community, a more thrifty and 
successful peoi)le, remarkable alike for their love of 
liberty and their attachments to their country, can no- 
where be found. 

The thrift everywhere diffused along the intervale, no 
longer hid in its native fastnesses, has kept pace with the 
steady hum of its population. It is in fact impossible to 
contemplate the unvaried progress of the Lackawanna 
Valley for the last thirty years without astonishment and 
pride. It has been a progress at once so rapid, so liberal, 
so vast and comprehensive in its character, as to exhibit 
alike the importance of the valley, and the sagacity of 
those to whom its development has been intrusted. Buried 
deep in the forest of northeastern Pennsvlvania, as it has 



310 HISTORY OF THE 

been within a few years, walled in fiom tlie great world 
by natural mountain barriers, like the Northmen among 
their glimmering crags, with no outlet to the east or the 
west, but for the slow coach, swinging along at the rate 
oi four miles an hour behind the jaded stage-horse, with 
no incitement but its slumbering wealth, it has risen lil^e 
a man awakened from his slumbers, strong, refreshed, 
invigorated, until it has become one of the most com- 
mercial and prosperous valleys in the State. 

FORMATION OF TOWNSHIPS UNDER PENNSYLVANIA JURIS- 
DICTION : PRIMITIVE MINISTERS. 

Pittston was formed in 1790. 
Providence was formed, August, 1792. 
Abington was formed, August, 1806. 
Greenfield was formed, January, 1816. 
Covington was formed, January, 1818. 
Blakeley was formed, April, 1818. 
Carliondale was formed, April, 1831. 
Jefferson was formed. April, 1836. 
Lackawanna was formed, November, 1838. 
Benton was formed 1838. 
Newton was formed 1844. 
Madison was formed 1845. 
Fell was formed 1845. 
Scott was formed 1846. 

The same territory, divided into lots of 300 acres eacli, 
extending back two and a half miles, was covered by 
two towns, while under Connecticut jurisdiction, viz. : 
Pittston and Providence. Three hundred acres of land 
were appropriated or reserved in either of thes*^ original 
towns for the use of i\iei first minister in fee ^ before otlier 
lots were offered to the settler. Before the ministeria) 
occupancy of these reservations, the adjoining town of 
Wilkes Barre with that of Kingston, prospered under 
the spiritual pleadings of the Rev. Jacob Johnson, a 
Presbyterian minister, for whom a house was built by 
the colony in 1772, and whose salary this year was fixed 
at sixty pounds Connecticut currency. ^ 

' Westmoreland Records. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 



311 



After the annihilation of the Connecticut claim in 1782, 
hy the court at Trenton, the commissioners allowed 
"The Eev. Mr. Johnson to have the full use of all 
the grounds he Tilled for two years, ending the first of 
May, 1785." ^ He refused the kindness of the favor in a 
spirit less chafing than biblical, as evinced by the fol- 
lowing letter' of 

"Jacob Johnson To the Com'* of the Pennsylvania Land- 
owners, &c. : Gentlemen, 

I thank you for your distinguished Favor shewed to me 
the widows, &c., in a proposal of Indulgence, Permitting 
us to reside in our present Possessions and Improvements 
tor the present & succeeding Year. Altho I cannot Con- 
sistly accept tlie offer, having Chosen a Com'^ for that 
purpose, who are not disposed to accept of or Comply 
with your proposals. However, I will for myself (as an 
Individual) make you a proposal agreable to that Royal 
President, Sam' 9'\ l&\ & 19'^ Chapter, if that dont suit 
you and no Compromise can be made, or Tryal be had, 
according to the law of the States, I will say as Mephe- 
boseth, Jonathan's son (who was lame on both his feet) 
said to King David, Sam' 19, 30, yea let him take all. So 
I say to you Gentlemen if there be no resource, Neither 
by our Petition to the Assembly of the State of Pennsy- 
vania or otherAvise, Let the Landholders take all. I have 
only this to add for my Consolation and you Gentlemen's 
serious Consideration, Viz : that however the Cause may 
be determined for or against me (in this present uncertain 
State of things,) there is an Inheritance in the Heavens, 
sure & Certain that fadeth not a way reserved for me, and 
all that love the Saviour Jesus Christ's appearing. 

I am Gentlemen, with all due Respect, & good Will 
your Most Ob' Humble ServS 
JACOB JOHNSON. 

Wioming, Ap' 24t^ 1783. 

To the Gentlemen Com'*, &c. 

'Pa. Arch., 1783-1786, p. 32. ' Ibid., pp. 34, 35. 



312 HISTORY OF THE 

N, B, it is my Serious Opinion if we proceed to a Com- 
promise according to the Will of heaven that the lands 
(as to the Right of soil) be equally divided between the 
two Parties Claiming, and I am fully Satisfied this Opinion 
of mine may be proved even to a demonstration out of 
the Sacred Oracles. I would wish you Gentlemen would 
turn your thoughts and enquiries to those 3 Chapters 
above refered to and see if my Opinion is not well 
Grounded & if so, I doubt not but we Can Compromise 
in love and Peace — and save the Cost and Trouble of a 
Tryal at Law." 

The doctrines of Methodism were occasionally ex- 
pounded to the people of Pittston and Providence in 
1790 ; in 1794 an Englishman named William Bishop, a 
fervid Baptist preacher, kindled his fire on the parsonage 
lot in Providence, This lot lay on the east side of Hyde 
Park, and extended over the marsh or pond which a few 
years since gave to the interior of Scranton such a pisca- 
tory appearance. The principal hotels and churches, as 
well as the greater portion of Scranton, stand upon these 
ancient church lands. 

On the bluff, upheaved from the Lackawanna, whose 
waters so gracefully bend around its base, the log-house 
and churcli of Elder Bishop, combined in one, emerged 
from the forest. It was a rude, paintless affair. No bell, 
steeple, pulpit, nor pews, marked it as a house of worship ; 
four plain sides, chinked with Avood held by adhesive 
mud, formed a room where the backwoodsmen gathered 
in a spirit of real piety, sincerity, and an absence of 
display impossible to find to-day in the more costly and 
imposing sanctuaries around us. 

The habits of the assemblage were in keeping with the 
character of the humble edifice. Women wore dresses 
made from flax and woolen, fitting them so closely and 
straight as a bean-pole. These were sometimes plain from 
the loom, but generally colored and stinped with a 
■domestic dye, giving to the woolen fabric every variety 



I.ACKAWANXA VAF-LKY. 313 

■of finish and sliade. Instt^ad of the negative shoe worn 
nowadays, the old-fasliioned ones then in use furnished 
to the wearer one of the essentials to h)ng life and health 
— a generous warmth. 

The shadowy and often senseless duties of the milliner 
were but slightly appreciated here at that time, for one 
instance is related to the writer of a woman whose bon- 
net, cut from pasteboard and trimmed as plainly as a 
pumpkin, was worn summer and winter for the long 
period of twenty-two years, with no other change nor 
"doing up" than the addition of a single new ribbon or 
string ! Appalling and incredible as may appear the fact 
to the girl or the matron of the present time, the person 
yet lives in the valley Avho remembers this pious and 
economical mother well. The prudent wife and mother 
who understood the necessity of supplying the wants of 
the family from the scanty means within her reach, so 
united industry with economy as to exhibit in the most 
favorable light the qualities of the New England women. 

Broadcloth coats were never seen unless brought from 
Connecticut. Their place was supplied by the rough, 
warm, honest homespun, or more frequently by a suit of 
bear, or the coveted deer skin. Hats and caps ingeniously 
constructed from the skin of wild animals found in evt^ry 
thicket, were universally worn in winter, while in sum- 
mer the straw hat, braided from the well-thrashed rye, 
gave comfort and dignity to the wearer. 

Men and boys went barefooted until they reached the 
place of meeting, carrying their shoes in their hands, 
putting them on during preaching, and after meeting 
would walk home, sometimes many miles, upon the bare 
feet, and the shoes were returned in the same manner 
in which they had been brought. Many of the settlers, 
pressed by the needs of the household, did not enjoy the 
luxury even of carrying shoes. 

The women were always seated upon one side of the 
house, the men upon the other. The habit of the male 



314 HISTORY OF THE 

and female portion of the community being seated pro- 
miscuously in a country school or meeting-house was in- 
dulged in here only within the last forty years. 

PROPRIETORS' SCHOOL-FUND AND PRIMITIVE SCHOOLS. 

The fund in the township of Providence, known as the 
"Proprietors' School-Fund," came from a provision full 
of forethought and wisdom. The original proprietors of 
the seventeen towns certified to Connecticut settlers in 
Westmoreland, in setting aside certain lots for religious 
and literary purposes, inaugurated a measure that speaks 
for itself. Nearly 2,000 acres were thus reserved by the 
Yankees in the town of Providence. 

The commissioners appointed under the act passed in 
April, 1799, offering compensation to Pennsylvania claim- 
ants, issued certificates or patents for the land from tlie 
State to the committees for the said lots in trust for the 
use of the proprietors of said town or township, and the 
annual committee had from time to time sold or leased 
for a term of years a great part of such lots, reserving the 
remainder for the proprietors' use. 

As the committees, however, were supposed by many to 
be invested with little or no legal powers, the sales and 
leases made by them were so little regarded, that some 
debts and rents, due the original Yankee proprietoi-s, are 
yet remaining unpaid. 

A portion of the land thus appropriated by the old 
Susquehanna Company for school purposes, was sold the 
17th of September, 1795, to William Bishop, by Constant 
Searles, James Abbott, and Daniel Taylor, who acted for- 
the township. 

With a view of confirming sucli contracts and sales, 
which at the time were deemed advantageous for the 
school fund, the proprietors of the township obtained an 
act of incorporation from the Legislature during its session 
of 1835, similiar in its character to that obtained in 1831 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. ''^.15 

by the townships of Wilkes Barre, Hanover, and Ply- 
month, clothing the trustees of the township with all the 
privileges and franchises of corporations. John Dings, 
Samuel De Puy, William Merrifield, Joshua Griffin, and 
Nathanial Cottrill were vested with the authority of trus- 
tees under this act, until after the annual election. 

Although this act did not affect any sales previously 
made by individuals acting for the township, and conse- 
quently failed to reach and recover lands forever lost to 
it, yet it enabled the proprietors who were subsequently 
elected by tlie taxable inhabitants of the district, to sell 
the remainder of this land, lying in the vicinity of Hyde 
Park, for the sum of $3,300, which being secured by bond 
and mortgage upon the property, now furnislies by its 
yearly interest the "School Fund," a fund which con- 
tributes so justly toward the support and success of what 
is considered so essential to the promotion of national 
welfare — common sell ools. 

The first house built in the valley with especial reference 
only to schools was erected in 1818, upon a plot of land 
now within the limits of Providence village. The build- 
ing was nine by twelve, without paint, steeple, or bell, yet 
no college hall now offers more willing culture to the 
young than did this plain edifice beneath the murmuring 
pines, open its doors to the mischievous urchins of the 
valley just half a century ago. 

In reviewing the history of the Yankee settlements in 
Westmoreland, much of the thrift and sprightliness of 
the New England character can be traced in the element- 
ary education imparted to them from the cabin school- 
house along the forest. Many of the pioneers were men 
of deep religious sentiment and principle, and after their 
families had been sheltered from the storms and the intru- 
sion of the inmates of the wigwam, they made provisions 
for the school-house. 

The school records of the various townships in the 
valley, present no striking peculiarity, but as far as an}' 



316 HISTORY OF THE 

judgment can be formed from the contents and character 
of the former records, both of school and society, it leads 
unavoidably to the conclusion that there has been no 
relaxation of effort in the cause of education since the 
earlier settlers passed away. The standard which they 
created has not been overlooked, nor has the common 
interest of every citizen in the education of the commu- 
nity been forgotten. While the district and higher school 
arrangements in the Lackawanna Valley are justly looked 
upon as superior— and some are eminently so — they would 
suffer none to-day by a comparison with any school 
found within the precincts of the oldest settled counties 
in the State. 

The schoolmaster was, at an early period, an object of 
terror to school-children, and of vast importance in a 
a small neighborhood where he " boarded around." The 
respected parson, frequent in his visits, and beloved by all 
for his good wishes and kind words, only received more 
courteous attention from the farmer and his wife, tluin 
did the country schoolmaster — especially a 71610 one, 
whose reputation for ''licking''' his scholars had hap- 
pily preceded him. 

It is well for the timid, nervous child, that the barbar- 
ous and often surgical whip and ferule, and the triumph- 
ant blows of a master strong in muscle and weak in 
mind, have been exchanged for a more rational dis- 
cipline. 

While the writer recollects his own school-boy days, 
when he spent many an idle hour in the old school-house 
on the hill, surrounded on every side but one by sap- 
lings, whose branches were often applied to the coatless 
backs of the pupils by some itinerating vender of ab c's, 
after the boys had been seated upon a high, hard, hem- 
lock bench, six or eight hours, half frozen in winter and 
quite boiled in summer, he can not but rejoice at the 
progressive character of gomriiment in our common 
schools, as well as in their grade. 



LACKAWANNA VAI.LKT. 317 

PATHS AND ROADS — JOUKNEY FROM CONNECTICUT TO 
PITTSTON IN 1793. 

The general poverty of the earlier emigrants, united 
with the agitated condition of Wyoming while the Prov- 
ince of Pennsylvania acquiesced in British allegiance, 
restrained the inhabitants from planning and woi-king 
roads needed for ordinary intercourse. 

Mountain trails trodden by the red men centuries before, 
and by the whites seeking Indian homes for traffic in rum 
and skins, led over the Moosic toward Connecticut undis- 
turbed until 1769, when a narrow road long called the 
" Cobbi-oad " was opened from the Province of New York 
to Wyoming. This was the great and only highway 
entering the valley eastward from 1769 to 1772. From 
the Lackawanna to the Great Council Fires of the Six 
Nations among the Lakes, there was no pathway other 
than the warriors' trail connecting Capoose with Con-e- 
wa-wah (Elmira), until 1788. 

Among the traders roaming along this wood-wrapped 
avenue for traffic Avith its tribal masters, was the after- 
ward celebrated John Jacob Astor. 

The conflicting claims to the territory embraced by 
Wyoming and Lackawanna valleys, provoked a contro- 
versy between Pennsylvania and Connecticut, long and 
embittered. The claim of the Yankees being summarily 
disposed of by the Trenton Decree, Pennsylvania assumed 
jurisdiction over the valleys known as AVestmoreland no 
longer. This obliteration of rival interest, however flnal 
and prejudged it might have been, gave the settlers who 
remained under the new order of things, leisure to repair 
roads sadly neglected during and after the war. 

The first appointment by the justices in 1788 of the 
supervisors of roads in Pittston, was John Philips and 
Jonathan Newman ; in Providence, Henry Dow Tripp. 

At the September sessions, 1788, held in Wilkes Barre, 
a petition was received from "Job Tripp and others, 



318 HISTORY OF THE 

praying that proper persons may be appointed to lay out a 
road in the town of Providence. It is ordered that Eben- 
ezer Marcy, Isaac Tripp, Samuel Miller, Henry D, Tripp, 
Waterman BaldAvin, and Jonathan Newman, be, and they 
are hereby appointed to lay out necessary roads in said 
town, and make return to this court at the next session." 
At the December session, 1788, they reported that they 
had laid out roads through Pittston, but had surveyed 
none in Providence, so their report was not accepted. 

As the road was essential to the wants of the upper 
township, the court appointed six housekeepers to sur- 
vey one fifty feet in width. This followed the old road 
leading up through the Capoose, constructed under Yan- 
kee jurisdiction. The next year, John Philips and David 
Brown were appointed supervisors of highways in Pitts- 
ton, and Job Tripj) and Wm. Alsworth in Providence. 

It does not appear, however, that an}^ new roads were 
laid out or worked up to this time, by any of these super- 
visors — old roads only being surveyed and repaired. 

Job Tripp, Constant Searles, Jediah Hoyt, Daniel Tay- 
lor, and James Abbott, living in Providence, were ap- 
pointed in 1791, to lay out roads here. The present road 
leading from Pittston to Providence was surveyed by them 
on the 4th and 5th of April, 1791. This began " on the 
northeast side of the Lackawanna River in the town of 
Providence, beginning at Lackawanny River, neare where 
Mr. Leggett now lives,'- and thence through Providence 
to the Pittston line. Gabriel Leggett then lived a short 
distance above the residence and mill of the late Judson 
Clark, in Providence. 

The Lackawanna was yet bridgeless, and only crossed 
by fording. Different fording-places took their respective 
names from the respective owners of the land in the imme- 
diate vicinity. Thus at the Capoose Works of Mr. Car- 
ter, located a mile from the center of the ancient meadow 
by that name — was Bagley' s ford ; at Providence, near 
the mound of Capoose, Lutz's ford, etc. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 319 

Leggett's Gap road was laid out in 1795. The Lacka- 
wanna Turnpike Road Company was incorporated in 1817, 
and was tlie first turnpike along the valley. 

The journey from Connecticut to the Lackawanna in 
1793, through a half-opened wilderness of nearly two 
hundred miles, was no easy matter. K daj^'s drive Avith 
the slow ox-team over a road barely answering its pur- 
pose, was but eight or ten miles. At nightfall, a camping 
ground was chosen by the road-side near some spring or 
rivulet, when fuel was gathered and the bright, welcome 
blaze of the fire in the woods lonely and deep, offered 
light and company while the supper was being prepared 
and partaken. If from the forest thronged with deer, 
none was secured for the evening's meal, bread and 
bacon issued from the chest, or corn-meal from the sad- 
dle-bags was readily converted into "Johnny cakes." 
Supper disposed of, and the oxen cared for by a liberal 
supi^ly of browse, a few extra logs were piled on the fire 
as the party crowded under the cover of the wagon and 
found repose amidst the silence of night. 

Along the Lackawack, whose sober waters no longer 
rocked the Indian's ci'aft, this road offered few induce- 
ments to j)ursue it as it drifted t<:)ward Wj^oming, passing 
through the "Lackawa" settlement, and crossing Cobb 
Mountain into Capoose. From the Paupack clearings to the 
Lackawanna there was in 1793 but three dwellings, at 
Little Meadows, Cobb's, and Alsworth's at Dunmore. 

Several acres of land overgrown with wild grass and 
lying ten miles west of the Wallenpaupack in a rich 
intervale, were found inhabited by the red tribes when 
the whites explored it in 1769. A small creek stretches 
its languid line across the meadow into a neighboring 
pond, where the abundance of fish gave joy to the wig- 
wams on the western edge of the meadow, from whence 
the Avarriors came forth with peace-pipe to smoke the 
friendly welcome. This point, because of its prolific 
growtli of wild grass, was selected for a residence by 



320 HISTORY OF THE 

Seth strong, in 1770. It was the first attempt to settle the 
territory, now known as Wayne County. Mr. Strong 
lived here at the time of the Wyoming massacre. 

This farm is known as the Goodrich property, into 
whose possession it came in 1803. It was the birthplace 
of that eccentric genius, Phineas G. Goodrich, known in 
every nook and corner of Wayne, as '■^long-nosed Good- 
rich," who writes of Strong, "I had this from the early 
settlers on the Paupack, who in 1778 hid their effects in 
the woods and fled to Orange County, to escape the toma- 
hawk and scalping-knife. There was a skirmish here on 
our old place (Little Meadow) between the whites and 
Indians. The whites were mostly slain. I remember the 
mound that was raised over their one common grave. 
Indians and whites were buried together. When a boy, 
I used to find the arrows and broken hatchets of the red- 
men around the mound and the hill." 

In 1793 there lived a man here by tlie name of Stanton, 
whose one-roomed log-house, eai-ly styled an "Inn," fur- 
nished accommodation for tho wayfaring man and beast. 
The structure itself, standing on th(- knoll rising west- 
ward from the meadow, was half occupied by a huge fiie- 
place and chimney grouped from stone and mud. The 
guests, emboldened to ascend a ladder to the upper story 
where the bare rafters greeted the head of the aspirant, 
found only boughs and grass spread upon the pole floor- 
ing for their reception and repose. 

Such was this rustic inn, whose counterpart was seen 
in many of the new settlements. Homely as was its fare, 
plain as were its pewter dishes and single hunting-knife,, 
the venison or bear meat swinging from the trammels,, 
hunger made always welcome. 

Fox-meat was not so readily appreciated. A stranger 
passing the way, was di-awn to the table by the smell of 
roasting meat. Taking a morsel of the smoking viand in 
his mouth, it stung him like cayenne. Thinking that the 
housewife had peppered one side of the roast too highly^ 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 321 

he turned the dish around and took a slice from the other 
side with the same provoking result. He laid down his 
knife and fork, and asked the good-natured landlady, 
Avliat kind of meat it was. "Why," replied she, very 
innocently, "this morning my husband killed a fox, so I 
thought I would roast the hind quarter." The stranger 
was furious. "D— n your fox!" he exclaimed as he 
dashed platter, grease, fox, and all to the floor, and hastily 
resumed his journey. 

Bishop Asbury, after visiting Wyoming in 1793, re- 
turned to New York over this route' by Strong's, and thus 
records it in his diary. 

'''Monday 8, 1793. — I took the wilderness, through the 
mountains up the Lackawanna, on the Twelve Mile 
Swamp ; this place is famous for dirt and lofty hemlock. 

We lodged in the middle of the swamp, at S ' s, and 

made out better than we expected." ^ 

Cobb's house on the slope of the Moosic Mountain, a 
distance of about eight miles from Little Meadows, was 
leached. The white cover of the wagon, jerking up or 
down as it mounted over a root, or plunged into a rut, 
])assHd over creeks never yet spanned by a bridge. The 
plain house of Cobb, floored, ceiled, and shingled with 
the split slabs, was too small to accommodate the emigra- 
ting party, who found in the hospitable wagon repose for 
the night. Asa Cobb made the first clearing here soon 
after the close of the Revolution. It was seven miles, or 
one day' s journey from Cobb' s, to where now stands the vil- 
lage of Dunmore. One green wave of tree-top was carried 
to the very summit of the mountain, disturbed by no clear- 
ing upon its western slope save that of William Alsworth, 
whose cabin half hid under hemlock and spruce, was also 
termed an inn. And, although the rude dwelling had 
little of the finish about it of modern times, the social 
comforts and the substantial meals and beds it furnished 

' Dr. Peck's Early Alethodism, p. 58. 



322 HISTORY OF THE 

to the casual emigrant, was evidence that Alsworth had 
lost none of the New England character. The good old 
man, who acted as landlord, hostler, and waiter, and doing 
every chore essential to household affairs, never was so 
delighted as when he saw gathered around him the 
happy face of the emigrant or his guests, and his greatest 
pleasure seemed to be, to smooth with his dry jokes and 
racy stories the ruggedness of each man' s daily road. 

Pittston, a tidy village on the Susquehanna of half a 
dozen houses, two only of which were frame, was thus 
reached after a journey of thirt3^-one days.^ 

THE RISE OF METHODISM IN THE VALLEY. 

As the emigrants encamped upon Wyoming generally 
acquiesced in Presbyterian tenets, an organization friendly 
to their diffusion was easily effected under the ministra- 
tions of the Rev. Jacob Johnson, an officiating minister 
in the colony, as early as 1772, and Avho for many years 
was the only one, with a single exception, in all the wide 
territory lying between Sunbury and the Mohawk. 

Not so, however, with the Methodists. As the noiseless 
border of the Lackawanna began to thicken with a popu- 
lation, whose physical wants for a time pressed those of a 
spiritual character aside, Sabbath morning, with its asso- 
ciations of youthful days in the old village church at 
home, came and went with better observance. Hunting, 
Ishing, horse-racing, or wrestling for drinks for the crowd, 
were among the many ways chosen to wear Sunday away 
by a large proportion of the inhabitants many years ago, 
before religious influences crept into the new settlements 
of Capoose or Pittston. The birth of Luzerne County, in 
1786, modified elements hitherto adverse to either the 
achievements of Methodism, or the favorable propagation 
of the doctrines of any organic religious interests. 

One of those liappy characters able to hew their way 

' Mrs. Von Storcli. 



LACKAWANXA VALLKY. 323 

into a prominent usefulness emerged from a blacksmith 
shop in Kingston, and commenced to exhort and explain 
the liberal doctrines of Methodism to the world in 1787. 
This was Anning Owen. He had early emigrated from 
Connecticut to Wyoming with the pioneers ; had fought 
beside the gallant Butler in the Indian battle on the plain 
until the day was lost, escaping only with his life. He 
accompanied the fugitives to the East after the massacre, 
where he remained for nine years before he again crossed 
the mountain and rolled up his log-cabin and shop on the 
bank of Toby's Creek, in Kingston. Never neglecting 
the duties of his shop until his appointments multiplied 
far and near, he officiated in the double capacity of 
blacksmith and exhorter for a few seasons before he 
became a circuit preacher of singular efficiency and power. 

A Metliodist class was formed at Ross Hill, AYyoming 
Valley, in 1787-8 ; three years later a similar society, 
fewer in numbers, was hrst organized in the Lackawanna 
Valley, at the forge of Dr. Wm. Hooker Smitli and 
James Sutton, by the Rev. James Campbell, who had 
been sent hither by the Philadelphia Conference for this 
specific purpose. The group, composed of five members, 
were led by James Sutton as class-leader. 

In the summer of 1792 Mr. Owen ascended the Lacka- 
wanna to Capoose and upper Providence, where he 
preached alternately at Preserved Taylors and Captain 
John Vaughn's, in private houses. Captain A^aughn had 
imbibed the broad doctrines of Universalism, but their 
fallacious character was so demonstrated and proven 
by the plain blacksmith, that be forsook them forever, 
and became a zealous convert to Methodism. Meetings 
were also occasionally held in other log-houses or cabins 
along the stream, where the minister, generally poor and 
penniless, tarried all night, and enjoyed the abundant 
and real hospitality of the valley. Bisliop Asbury, in 
his reconnoiter of the Lackawanna and Wyoming valleys 
in 1793, appointed Valentine Cook presiding elder. 



324 HISIOKY UF THE 

In 1800, Methodist meetings were held once a montli at 
the house of Preserved Taylor, in Providence, who lived 
upon the western border of Capoose Meadow. After Mr. 
Taylors removal, the dwelling of Squire Pottei-, two miles 
farther up the valley, became a stated preaching point. 
In fact, the lonely school-house or the isolated cabin, 
afforded the only places for religious gatherings in the 
valley until the fall of 1828, when there was erected the 
first meeting-house in that very portion of it last settled 
— in Carbondale. 

Meetings were sometimes held in cool groves or woods 
from bare necessity. Some shaded nook, watered by 
a spring or brook, was chosen for a camp-ground. Here, 
around a circle well cleared of underbrush and sheltered 
by hemlock or beech from the rays of the sun, rose 
the whitened tents like the wigwams of the cunning bow- 
men, in which were collected groups of old and young, 
whose pilgrimage to this wild, joyous Mecca was long 
remembered with pleasure and profit. 

In 1803, two noisy itinerants went forth like John the 
Baptist, to prepare the way of the Lord. They preached 
at Kingston, Plymouth, Shawney, Wilkes Barre, Pittston, 
Providence, crossed the Moosic Mountain at Cobb's, 
journeying through Salem, Canaan, Mount Pleasant, Great 
Bend, and Tunkhannock, and preaching in all these 
places before returning to Wyoming. In 1807, a regular 
circuit was formed, and a portion of the same route was 
traveled over twelve times a year, or once in every four 
weeks. From 1810 until 1818, George Harman and Eldei' 
Owen officiated in this vineyard. One of the prominent 
members of the church here then was old " Fatliei- 
Ireland," as he was familiarly called, who emigrated 
to Providence Township in 1795, and settled upon what is 
now known as the Briggs's farm. He was a long time 
a class-leader. In his intercourse with the world, his 
kindness of heart, and his calm and virtuous life, until 
his sun passed behind the horizon alter a long day, con- 



LACKAWANNA VALt.EY. 325 

tributed no little toward softening the prejudices of the 
illiberal against the Methodist Society. 

The two events marking their distinctive era in the 
development of Methodism in the valley were the visit of 
Bishop Asbury in 1793, and the accession to its strength 
of the young but bold and fervid presence of the Rev. 
George Peck, D. D., in 1818. He brought with him 
a fixed purpose to diffuse Christian truths in the new field 
before him, in the exercise of which he was made familiar 
throughout the country as the great champion of Metho- 
dism. "In less than a century," said he to Brother 
Taylor, as he was threading his way along the infant 
settlement, "this charming valley, from its beauty and 
fertility, will have a large population and need great con- 
version." Heaven, in its mercy, has given the venerable 
elder fifty -tJiree years in the pnlpit, with a yet firm step 
and bright eye, so that he has not only lived to witness 
the fulfillment of his prophecy, but has shared in the 
triumjihs of faith w^ith a fidelity and complacency en- 
joyed by few. Dr. Peck has achieved distinction as an 
author of great ability, as his numerous, popular volumes 
ott'cred the public attest. 

Although many of the uncharital)le charge the spirit- 
ual advisers of this denomination, with mercenary views 
as they direct the wanderer on to the Iliew Jerusalem, we 
find them as a body to possess as little selfishness, and 
quite as much true, honest, available capacity, and 
appreciation of the right, as can be found in the same 
number of men of any creed or profession in the countrj^ ; 
and, although some within the writer's acquaintance com- 
mand a fortune, few a competency, while very many are 
comparatively poor, thus affording a decisive commentary 
on the utter want of judgment of the illiberal. And, yet, 
beset, with every inducement, with no hope of personal 
advantage or emolument from their ministerial labors, 
and pressed by wants that pride conceals from the care- 
less eye, how rarely do they wield their talents for money, 



326 HISTORY OF THE 

position or power ! And yet when a whole life has l^eeu 
spent to diffuse those sublime, simple truths which form 
the basis of all morals, how little security does the purity 
of character or the claim of age ofter from the assaults of 
parishioners whose liturgy seems but a desire to exile 
their pastor, and whose devotions are the convenience or 
but the fashion of the hour ! 



SMELLING HELL. 

Anning Owen was a son of Vulcan, a stout, swarthy, 
genuine specimen of earnestness, who spoke all he knew 
and sometimes more, in the most impulsive manner. He 
remarked often, that he preached as he hammered out hot 
iron, to make an impression. His sermons were always 
extempore; after he warmed up in his favorite subject, 
his eye grew animated, his voice full and clear, as he dis- 
played eloquence of a high order. 

The Methodists labored under many disadvantages. 
The self-sacrihcing and sometimes boisterous itinerants 
who were toiling for their race merely for the sake of 
good, and no possible hope of pecuniary gain, with few 
thanks, little or no remuneration, often with scanty fare, 
were sometimes accused of ignorance, bigotry, and fanati- 
cism, and yet under the effective appeals of 'Elder Owen, 
much of this common error was dispersed, while the 
church, augmenting in numbers, surpassed every othei- 
denomination in the extent of its prosperity. The loud 
"hallelujalis," "glories," and "aniens," which pealed 
forth from the preachers in such sharp accents as to be 
heard at least half a mile from the stand at this period, 
was so different from the sober mode of worship of the 
more numerous Presbyterians, that many thought them 
crazy, and in one or two instances attempted to enforce 
silence by violent measures. 

A good story is told of Elder Owen by an old uncle 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 327 

of the writer, who liearcl him preacli at a quarterly meet- 
ing, held at the court-house in Wilkes Barre, in the 
winter of 1806. Never closing his sermons without 
reminding sinners of the danger of br imstone, it liad at 
length become so proverbial that the boys in a sportive 
mood (for there were sons of Belial in those days as well 
as now), had a living illustration of the virtues of his 
doctrine, at the elder s expense. In the south wing of 
the old court-house there was a large lire-place, in which 
smoked a huge beechen back-log. Behind this some of 
the boys had placed a yellow roll of the genuine article 
before the meeting commenced in tlie evening. The elder 
— or the Son of Thunder as he Avas called — opened his 
battery with more force than usual upon the citadel of 
Satan. He began to grow excited while elucidating the 
words of his text, "he that believeth not shall be 
damned."' The flames of the fire began to penetrate the 
region wliere lay concealed the warming and wicked 
brimstone, the fumes of which spread through the room 
in the most provoking manner. The elder, with such a 
re-enforcement to his brain and his battery, felt inspired. 
Although ignorant of the joke the devil was playing upon 
him, he soon appreciated the odor of his resistless agent. 
Turning his eye upon the unconverted portion of the con- 
gregation, he exclaimed in a loud voice, "Sinners ! unless 
you are converted you will be cast in the bottomless pit." 
Pausing a moment as he glanced indignantly upon the 
tittering ones who were enjoying the scene in an eminent 
degree, he raised himself to his utmost height, elevated 
his voice to a still loftier key, and at the same time bring- 
ing down his clinched fist with a powerful stroke upon 
the judge's desk, cried out, "Sinners, Avhy don't you 
repent, don'' t you smell hell P'' 

It may be interesting to note that in 1833 the long- 
remembered patriarch, Lorenzo Dow, with his long white 
beard and imposing equipage, in passing down the valley 
to his Southern death-bed, preached to a vast assemblage 



328 HISTORY OF THE 

in a barn in Providence. This barn was blown over by 
the great gale in 1834. 

FORMATION OF ANTHRACITE COAL. 

To the geologist or the philosopher, coal-formation 
affords great scope for theory and reflection. The gener- 
ally accepted supposition of scientific men, is that the 
coal-fields, once densely covered with trees huge as the 
California giants, were submerged by volcanic action, form- 
ing a vast lake into which whirled chaotic material, sepa- 
rated in the molten body into alternate layers of coal, 
sandstone, and shale. Different seams or veins of coal 
are thought to have been formed at different periods in the 
world's history, but under similar circumstances, thus 
alternately elevated or depressed. The progressive char- 
acter of fossils appearing in separate strata, proves their 
deposit at different periods ; and it is more than probable 
that centuries passed between their respective formations. 
Vegetable and organic remains found in one stratum, have 
no analogy in another. In the igneous or fire-rock no 
carboniferous element enters, while coal, viewed with a 
microscope, delineates the carbonized character of its ori- 
gin. Many hundreds of extinct species of plants have 
been recognized in the secondary series of rocks. The 
fern is found in the greatest abundance, while the branch- 
ing mosses — the calamites — the sigillaria — the cycades, 
and the palm appear in ceaseless profusion. 

Geological examinations made in the Lackawanna coal 
basin seem to favor the idea that the rocks of this region, 
with their intervening coal strata, originally level in posi- 
tion, were crumpled or folded into their present form of 
alternate basins and ridges by the same tremendous con- 
vulsions or slow changes which crowded up the Alle- 
ghany ranges ; and that, since then, tbe action of diluvial 
and atmospkeric agencies have worn away the upper or 
coal-bearing strata on most of the high and exposed points 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 329 

■of the Moosic hills and mountains, leaving them only in 
the troughs or depressions which were sheltered by the 
mountain rock and left in the position now found by the 
miner. The contraction or cooling of the anthracite lakes, 
gave the dipping or broken appearance to many of the 
veins of coal. Coal destitute of bitumen, or hard coal, 
found only in a minute portion of the earth' s surface, every- 
where in the carboniferous series presents the same phe- 
nomena of fossils. The fern being identified in species 
and genus to all those found in coal bottoms, it is inferred 
that the earth in its primitive period was insular, and 
that the rank vegetable growing then was the result of 
the internal heat of the globe, which at that time was too 
uniform to affect the latitudes. In fact, the immense 
•quantity of fossils brought to light along the Lackawanna, 
the remains of that by -gone time, attest how numerous the 
herd, and how hot and fertile the clime of that ancient 
epoch. 

In the preparation of vegetable matter for coal, heat, 
pressure, and water, were probably the controlling agents 
employed millions of years ago in the great cooking labo- 
ratory of nature. 

ORGANIC REMAIiSrS IN" COAL STRATA. 

Vegetable fossil and organic remains have been found in 
various mines in the valley — more especially in the town- 
ships of Providence, Blakeley, and Carbondale— im- 
bedded in the inclosing strata, preserving ever}' original 
outline except the change effected by the vast pressure, 
from the rounded to the flattened form. 

A large turtle family, fossil sea-shells, and fish resem- 
bling the gar-pike, or common pickerel, in size and shape, 
were found in Providence during the summer of 1856, by 
Captain Martin, while engaged in sinking a shaft, at the 
depth of some 200 feet. These were incased in the car- 
boniferous strata in such relation to the older, deeper 



330 HISTORY OF THE 

rock as to lead to the belief that the fish had once in- 
habited an open space of water communicating with a 
larger body or with the ocean itself, which by some up- 
heaval of the earth became isolated, the waters of the lake 
were drained, while the fish perished and, intermingled 
with sand, shale, and stone, were translated into the petri- 
fied specimens, now unresistingly summoned by the 
miner's drill. 

One large fish, more than a foot in diameter, and six 
feet in length, its fins, scales, and general structure yet 
distinctly recognized upon the stereotyping stone, was 
exhumed from its sepulcher, and blackened and brainless 
as it was found, takes us back to a period unknown and 
remote. This fish was broken while being blasted out 
by the miner, so that the skillful anatomist could soon 
determine, by the nature as well as by the number of tlie 
exposed vertebrae, its true species. 

Rain-marks, foot-prints, stigmaria, and other charac- 
teristics of the coal-measure, have been furnished in 
interesting abundance, within a comparative small space,, 
during the progress of the excavation at the shaft of the 
Van Stork Coal Company in Providence. 

In 1831, while Captain Stott was driving a drift in the 
mines at Carbondale for the Delaware and Hudson Canal 
Company, the roof of the mine, becoming dislocated from 
the parent earth, fell in over a considerable surface, 
furnishing the richest aspect of vegetable and organic 
fossils. Deep in the fractured interstratifying stone and 
slate were imprinted innumerable delicate impressions of 
leaves, flowers, broken limbs, of the palm leaf and the 
fern, so remarkable in size as to indicate that the tempera- • 
ture of the earth's surface at the period of their growth 
was far too heated for human life ; fallen trunks and 
branches of trees, so singularly dark and beautiful, that 
Daguerre could neither imitate nor improve ; huge outlines 
and tracks of the ichthyosauri — the giant lizard, curious 
in anatomical structure and strength; snakes, ribbed and 



LACKAWANNA YAI.LKY. 331 

rounded, whose like is rarely known, and wliose analogiios 
are only found near the tropics; a class of amphibians 
intermediate between reptiles and tisli — the batrachlan 
tribe — the mammoth frog, foot-marks of which were dis- 
played, exhibiting five toes before and four behind, mark- 
ing their presence and passage in otlier times ; all so dis- 
tinctly and so terribly delineated upon this master-press of 
nature, as to convey to the mind some faint idea of the 
monsters once swarming the jungles, and whose courts 
on the low, wet, warm marshes were suddenly adjourned 
by the great phenomena of coal-formation. 

MINERALS AND MINING. 

The Lackawanna and Wyoming anthracite coal basin, 
walled by low ranges of the Alleghany, and drained by 
the placid Lackawanna and Susquehanna, is about fifty 
miles in length and averages four in width. Veins of the 
purest anthracite emerge from the foot of the mountains, 
its entire length and breadth. The lower strata, sunk 
at a mean depth of four or five hundred feet beneath the 
surface in mid-valley, sliow themselves higher up the 
mountain side than those located nearer the surface of the 
valley. 

In its mineralogical character, the Lackawanna Valley 
is both varied and productive. Filled with the coal- 
measure from side to side, it not only presents a series of 
slate and shale interstratified with anthracite from a feAV 
inches to as many feet in thickness, but iron ore and lime- 
stone commingle and enrich the rugged acios of the intei-- 
vale. Four of the great coal seams in the Lackawanna 
Basin, viz. : the 7, 8, 10, and 12 feet veins (least thickness), 
furnish a total thickness of 37 feet, or 44,000 tons per acre. 

The productive character of this coal basin is exhibited 
by the following table prepared by Professor Rogers, ' 

' Report of the Geology and Mining in the Lackawanna Valley. 



332 HISTORY OF THE 

with especial reference to the coal-bearing in the township 
of Providence : — 

TABLE. 



Least Thickness. 


Good Coal. 


Yield of good Coal per Acre 


5 feet 


3 feet. 


4,000 tons. 


7 " 


H " 


7,000 " 


10 " 


H " 


12,000 " 


6 " 


3 " 


5,000 " 


12 " 


9 " 


15,000 " 


8 " 


6 " 


10,000 " 


6 " 


H " 


7,000 " 


54 " 


:!7i " 


60,000 " 



These seven veins alone yield 60,000 tons per acre. 
Twelve distinct, separate beds underlying the entire 
valley, furnish about sixty feet of available coal,— a sup- 
ply ample for as many generations, or until the day of 
ballooning shall bring forth a new discovery calculated 
to supersede the coal fire, as the old beechen back-log of 
times gone by has vanished into ashes. 

While the center of the Northern and Lackaw^anna 
coal-field is regarded as being near Pittston — the bed of 
the ancient caldron once glowing with anthracite — mines 
were first successfully worked at Carbondale at least one 
thousand feet above the level of Pittston coal. About 
twenty-five miles in length may be considered as the 
extent of this field, running northeast and southwest with 
the great Appalachian chain. 

COAL LANDS FIFTY YEARS AGO. 

Between the villages of Hyde Park and Providence 
bristles from the road-side a clump of pines, swinging 
their green limbs over a low, faded cottage, once made 
attractive by the presence of a young and loving heiress. 
To the south of this cottage a few yards opens a glen, so 
worn by the rapid stream dashing through it after a heavy 
rain or sudden snow-thaw, as to make it look almost 
cavernous. Down this rock-rimmed ravine, where it 
expands into the ancient meadow of Capoose. there lived 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 333 

an old gentleman in 1800. named Stephen Tripp, who 
owned much of the land in the notch of the mountain, 
about one mile above this point, called Leggett's Gap. 

Upon the brink of Leggett's Creek, passing through 
this gap, a small grist-mill was erected in 1805 by Joseph 
Fellows, Sen., the remains of which are yet visible by 
the road-side, but as the bank upon one side of the creek 
rose almost vertically into a full mountain, and upon the 
other ascended quite as abruptly hundreds of feet, covered 
with the stern hemlock, neither road, team, nor grist could 
approach the mill with safety, and the enterprise was 
reluctantly abandoned. 

This mountain mill-site, with a quantity of the wild 
laud in the vicinity of the "Notcli," Mr. Fellows pur- 
chased of Tripp, sixty years ago. for five gallons of 
whisky ; Fellows stipulating in the purchase to pay 
expense of survey and deed. The commercial worth of 
whisky being one dollar per gallon, this sale realized 
about fice cents per acre for lands now OAvned and mined 
by the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad 
Company, and worth at least five thousand dollars per 
acre. Some estimate of the value of coal lands at this 
period can be formed by the following incident. A then 
young man from Connecticut, who recently died in the 
adjoining county of AVayne, was passing along through 
Slocum Hollow (now Scranton), and observing a promi- 
nent cropping of coal by the road-side, asked the owner 
what it was, and what it was good for ? 

" Wal," replied the owner, who suspected it was no 
great credit either to his judgment or his pocket to 
possess such land, "they call it stone-coal, I believe, 
but I wish the cussed hlacJc stuff was off!" 

THE DISCOVERY AND INTRODUCTION INTO USE OF 
ANTHRACITE COAL. 

When lands passed from the natives to the whites, all 
knowledge of mineral deposits was rigidly withheld. 



33 i HISTORY OF TFIE 

Tradition gives a definite place to mines of gold, silver, 
lead, iron, copper, and coal, in neighborhoods far up in 
the vrilderness Avhere the wild man dwelt in his silent 
realm, but so carefully did the Indians, who knew less of 
the crucible than the cupidity of the trader, baffle the 
whites in their concealment, that their existence or loca- 
tion has become the subject of strange tales. If the men 
skilled in the lore of the forest were familiar with 
precious metals or black stones, their worth was taught 
them by the whites. 

Of the value, or even the existence of coal in America, 
all races were ignorant until about the middle of the 
seventeenth century. "At Christian Spring (near Naz- 
areth) there was living about the year 1750 to '55 a 
gunsmith, who, upon application being made him by 
several Indians to repair their rifles, replied that he was 
unable to comply immediately ; ' for,' says he, ' I am 
entirely bare of charcoal, but as I am now engaged in 
setting some wood to char it, therefore you must wait 
several weeks.' This, the Indians (having come a great 
distance) felt loath to do ; tliey demanded a bag from the 
gunsmith, and having received it, went away, and in two 
hours returned with as much stone-coal as they could well 
carry. TJiey refused to tell where they had procured it." * 

That portion of Pennsylvania purchased of the Five 
Nations by the Connecticut Susquehanna Com^Dany at 
Albany, July llj 1754, for "the sum of two thousand 
pounds of current money of the province of New York," ' 
embraced the Lackawanna and Wyoming coal district. 
Fourteen years later, November 5, 1768, the same ter- 
ritory was included in the Fort Stanwix purchase of the 
Indian Nations by the Proprietary Government of Penn- 
sylvania. The strife between Pennsylvania and Connec- 
ticut over Wyoming resulted from these purchases. 

As early as 1648, iron and copper mines were worked 

' Wm. Honry. '■'See original Deed of Six Nations to Susquehanna Co. 



LACKAVTANNA VALLEY. 335 

in an imperfect manner by tlie Dutch and Swedes, at 
a small village on the Delaware called Durham, a few 
miles below Easton ; but no mention of coal is made upon 
any map of Pennsylvania until 1770, when one published 
by Wm. Schull, of Philadelpliia, bears tlie word "coal" 
in two places. Pottsville and Minersville are now located 
upon the points thus indicated. 

On the original draft of the "Manor of Sunbury," em- 
bracing the entire western side of Wyoming Valley, sur- 
veyed in 1768 by Charles Stewart, in the Proprietary 
interests, appears the brief notation, "stone-coal," with- 
out further explanation. 

A Yankee named Obediah Gore, who emigrated from 
Connecticut to Wyoming in February, 1769, began lifw 
in the new colony as a blacksmith. Friendly with the 
remaining natives from motives of policy, he learned of 
them the whereabouts of black stones, and, being withal 
a hearty and an experimenting artisan, he succeeded after 
repeated trials and failures in mastering the coal to his 
shop purposes the same year. He is believed to have 
been the first white man to give practical recognition and 
development to anthracite as a generator of heat. Mr. 
Gore, afterward an associate judge of Luzerne County, 
was one of the brave defenders of Forty Fort in 1778, 
when assailed by the British and their Indian-Tory allies. 
In the few blacksmith shops in Wyoming Valley and the 
West Branch Settlement, coal was gradually introduced 
after its manipulation by Mr. Gore. 

When the struggle for American Independence began 
in 1775, the Proprietary Government of Pennsylvania 
found itself so pressed for fire-arms, that under the sanction 
•of the Supreme Executive Council two Durham boats 
were sent up to W^yoming and loaded with coal at Mill 
€reek, a few miles below the mouth of the Lackawanna, 
and floated down the Susquehanna to Harris's Ferry 
(Harrisburg) thence drawn upon wagons to Carlisle and 
employed in furnaces and forges to supply the defenders 



336 HISTORY OF THB 

of our country with arms. Thus stone-coal by its patri- 
otic triumphs achieved its way into gradual use. 

Beyond the limits of Wyoming, no discoveries of coal 
were made until 1791. During this year, "a hunter, by 
the name of Philip Ginther, who had built himself a 
rough cabin in the forest, on the Mauch Chunk Moun- 
tain, being out one day in quest of food for his family, 
whom he had left at home without any supply, meeting 
with but poor success, bent his course homeward as night 
was approaching, considering himself one of the most 
forsaken of human beings. As he trod slowly over the 
ground his foot stumbled against something, which by 
the stroke, was driven before him ; observing it to be 
black, to distinguish which there was just enough light 
remaining, he took it up, and as he had often listened to 
the traditions of the country of the existence of coal in 
the vicinity, it occurred to him that this might be a portion 
of that ' stone-coal ' of which he had heard. He accord- 
ingly carefully took it with him to his cabin, and the 
next day carried it to Colonel Jacob Weiss, residing at 
what was then known as Fort Allen, now Weisspoit." ' 

Coal-pits were opened here in May, 1792, by the 
"Lehigh Coal and Mine Company," which gratuitously 
distributed the brittle compound into every blacksmith 
shop in this portion of the State willing to use it. 

When the forest began to recede and the fresh charred 
land engaged the thoughts of the backwoodsman on th& 
Lackawanna, stone-coal had neither value nor recognition 
among men, with but a single exception. 

In 1815, there died an eminent physician and surgeon 
in Tunkhannock, who had formerly lived in the Lacka- 
wanna Valley, and who made the first purchase in the 
county of Luzerne of the right to mine coal here, of 
which record evidence is furnished. This was Dr. Wil- 
liam Hooker Smith, who made a number of such pur- 

' Henry's Lehigh Valley, p. 377. 



LACKAWANNA VAI.LEV. 337 

chases for a mere song, between the years of 1792 and 
1798. 

A bushel of coal was sent to Christian Micksch, a gun- 
smith in Nazareth, in November, 1798, but after trying it 
for three or four days by repeated blowing and punching 
and altering the fire in every possible manner, he grew so 
impatient at his long, fruitless efforts, that he indignantly 
threw it into the street, saying to Mr. William Henry, of 
whom he had purchased a bushel, "I can do nothing 
with your hlack stones, and therefore I threw them out of 
my shop into the street ; I can't make them burn. If yon 
want any work done with them, you may do it yourself ; 
everybody laughs at me for being such a fool as to try to 
make stones burn, and they say that you must be a fool 
for bringing them to Nazareth." 

During General Sullivan's march tlirough Wyoming in 
1779, one of his officers wrote of the valley : ''The land 
here is excellent, and comprehends vast mines of coal, 
pewter, lead, and cox:)peras." * The last three named have 
never been found here. The first few ark-loads of coal, 
carried from Mauch Chunk to Philadelphia was pur- 
chased by the city authorities, placed under the boiler of 
an engine, where it "put the fire out, while the remain- 
der of the coal was broken up and used for graveling 
streets." ■ 

Knowing that there was value in coal, which, in spite 
of the universal prejudice against its encroachments upon 
the old wood-pile and fire, would be made manifest by 
moral firmness and persistent struggle, and that it would 
rescue their mountains from oblivion, the Lehigh opera- 
tors, animated by no liope of immediate remuneration, 
mined a larger quantity of coal in 1806. The general dis- 
trust, however, of using stony fuel for domestic purposes 
Avas so prevalent even among intelligent persons, that 
comparatively none could be sold, little accepted as a gift, 

' George Grant's Report, 1779. 'William Henry. 

22 



338 HISTORY OF thp: 

thus compelling these gentlemen to suspend operations, 
and calmly wait and Avatch for the public mind to become 
schooled in the treasures of the Lehigh. Men, however 
upright and honorable, who talked of its introduction into 
common use in Philadelphia, were deemed fanatics, and 
ridiculed accordingly ; those attempting to sell the stuff 
for cash, compromised their integrity, and in some 
instances barely escaped arrest and maltreatment from 
the hands of the populace. 

The late Hon. Charles Miner came to Wyoming in 1799, 
and for thirteen years afterward edited the Luzerne Fed- 
eralist^ a weekly newspaper published at Wilkes Barre, 
and conducted with such marked ability and success, that 
ho soon became widely known as one of the strongest and 
most pleasing writers in the State. ' An accomplished 
scholar, an ingenious advocate, he combated the unspar- 
ing prejudices of the bigoted with an earnestness calcu- 
lated to correct rather than offend. 

No man labored with more unselfish fervor to unmuffle 
the coal-field or acquaint the masses with the grandeur of 
its character, than did the author of the History of 
Wyoming. Mankind, ever ready to embrace error, are 
slow to perceive great truths. The fallacy of employing 
stones gleaned from the mountain a hundred miles away 
for fuel, was so great, that the gray-headed octogenarian 
and the beardless youth — with all the intermediate condi- 
tions of life — laughed at the joke attempted to be played 
upon them. Old heads and young ones for once shared 
harmonious convictions as they ari-anged themselves as a 
unit on the orthodox side. Lectures delivered gratuitously 
explaining the power and character of the new combusti- 
ble ; certificates from Wyoming blacksmitlis attesting its 
superiority ; newspaper articles written with ability and 
patience, brought from the timid unbelievers not even a 
dull acknowledgment or approval. Or if a few assented 
to its possible future use in some capacity or another, 
they blended their assent with such a negative spirit as to 



LACKAWANNA VALI.KT. 339 

be little less obnoxious than the blmit, open hostilil}^ ac- 
corded it everywhere in Philadelphia, the only place coal 
was sought to be introduced. ' Quakers, acquiring a com- 
petency by the slow accretions of patient toil, were the 
tirst to menace and oppose the innovation of coal. As this 
respectable body, generally calm in its judgment, repre- 
sented the great bulk of Philadelphia enterprise and 
intelligence, its decision carried a w^eight fatal and con- 
clusive in the matter. Meantime, stone-coal, better under- 
stood among feudal rocks, began to receive especial 
homage in the Valley of Wyoming. 

Jesse Fell — afterward Judge Fell— a plain, modest 
reflective blacksmith, living in Wilkes Barre, gave it its 
first successful impulse toward general domestic use. In 
M'atching the light blue flame issuing from the furnace of 
his shop, made livelier by a draft of air from the hale 
lungs of a bellows, he conceived the idea of inauguratinp; 
;i coal iiie into an ordinary iire-place. His plan, just and 
reasonable as it appeared in his own mind for a while, 
faltered before the strong weapon of simple ridicule. 

In the leisure hour of an evening, he built up a jamb 
of brick woik in an old flre-place in his house, upon 
which he placed four or Ave bars of common square iron, 
with a sufiicient number up in front to hold wood and 
coal. He filled this contrivance with hard wood, after 
igniting which, he piled on a quantity of coal, sought 
his bed and was soon lost in slumber. This was done 
late at night lest the people of the neighborhood might 
again laugh at him for the persistency of his folly. Early in 
the morning as he awoke, he was astonished and cheered 
to witness the coal fire announcing its own unconscious 
achievement. That fire, kindling a glow of anthracite 
throughout the world, carried the name of Judge Fell 
down in history. Such was the theme of universal rejoicing 
throughout the valley that the event was discussed at 
every fireside ; the topic went wMth the people to church, 
and w^as diff'used throughout the congregation at large : 



340 HISTORY OF THE 

by common assent, it entered for a while into all conver- 
sations at home and abroad ; it silenced every advei'se 
criticism as it gave the signal for long and mntual con- 
gratulations at the hospitable house of the judge, where 
friend and foe alike acquiesced in the truth that Wyo- 
ming was freighted with infinite fortune. 

Judge Fell, long secretary of the Masonic lodge at 
Wilkes Bar re, deeming the event worthy of note, wrote 
the following memoranda upon the fly-leaf of the Masonic 
Monitor, in the bold, beautiful off-hand style for which 
he was reputed : — 

"February 11th, of Masonry 5808. Made the experi- 
ment of burning the common stone-coal of the valley, in a 
grate, in a common flre-place in my house, and find it will 
answer tlie purpose of fuel, making a clearer and better 
fire, at less expense, than burning wood in the common 
way. JESSE FELL. 

"February llth, 1808." 

A few ark-loads of coal went down tlie Susquehanna 
with the spring freshets from Wyoming to Harrisburg, 
where it was treated with the same indifference or derision 
shown preceding cargoes to Philadelphia. 

The intercourse between the inhabitants of Wilkes 
Barre and Philadelphia being considerable in the unhur- 
ried days of the stage-coach ; and anthracite being found 
in abundance in 1812 on the upper waters of the Schuyl- 
kill, united auxiliary influences to bear upon the public 
mind in the city to such an extent, that the next year 
wlien Col. George M. Hollenback sent tw^o four-horse 
wagon-loads of coal from Mill Creek to Philadelphia, it 
was sold with little effort to a few liberal patrons, among 
whom were the Wurtses, afterward conspicuous as pio- 
neers in the Lackawanna coal-field. 

Up the Lackawanna, coal was first burned in 1812, by 
H. C. L. Von Storch, of Providence. A bare body of it, 
washed by the high waters of spring, early exhibited its 



LACKAWANNA VALLKT. 841 

bald, blackened features by the side of the stream, near 
his dwelling. The same body or vein can yet be seen 
lying equidistant between the bridge crossed by Sander- 
son's railroad and Yon Storch's slope. Ignorant of the 
laws of mining, Mr. Von Storch dug up the coal as 
ordinary earth is dug. In an awkwaid grate, contrived 
from iron made at Slocum Hollow, he used the coal as a 
substitute for wood,. His success was so complete, that 
although the woods encircling his clearing offered its 
timber and coal for naught but the trouble of securing 
them, the superior genius of the latter, as an economical 
agent, was acknowledged even here. 

This stratum of coal, half-hidden undei- its rocky pillow, 
at once changed the entire tenantry and business aspect 
of the valley. William and Maurice Wurts, the real 
accoucheurs of this coal basin, were impelled hither in 
1812 in search of coal, and while exploring every gap 
and gorge, came across this prominent out-shoot. They 
desired earnestly to purchase, and had it fallen into 
their possession, as it possibly would have done had it 
not been for the success of Von Storch in burning coal 
found upon it, aside from the many changes it would 
have effected in all the relations of the valley, it is barely 
possible that Honesdale, Carbondale, Archbald, or Oly- 
phant would have arisen from tlie wilderness, or grown 
into towns of their present importance. 

Nor can it be supposed that Scranton, with its irre- 
sistible expansion, would have been even in existence to- 
day as Scranton^ if, from the operations of the Wurtses on 
Von Storcli's farm in Providence, "Wurtsdale," or 
some other town, had sprung into being, because the men 
whose name it bears— especially the late George W. and 
the present Joseph H. Scranton, Avho have contributed 
as much, if not more, to shape the varied industrial 
interests of this section of the valley than any other 
persons connected with its history — Avould have turned 
elsewhere their really effective energies. 



342 HISTORY OF THE 

Bituminous coal, used to a considerable extent in Phila- 
delphia at this time, being withheld from Liverpool by 
the collision with England, intelligent men who had 
acquired coal property and privileges for almost notliing, 
aimed to suj^ply its pJace with anthracite. Hon. Charles 
Miner and Jacob Cist, Esq., both prominent in the im- 
provements of the day, sent down an arlv-load of twenty - 
four tons of coal from Mauch Chunk to Philadelphia 
in the fall of 1814. By personal address and the neces- 
sities of manufacturing interests, they disposed of it all 
with but little loss to themselves. As the cost of trans- 
portation, fourteen dollars per ton, to an unwilling 
market, exceeded the receipts, these gentlemen soon 
withdrew from the proprietorship of the mines. While 
Mr. Miner promulgated and widened a knowledge of the 
qualiti cations of the new fuel, Mr. Cist, a merchant by 
)irofession, a natural genius and mechanic, was the first 
person to construct a pattern for burning coal in stoves. 
The stove was a high, square affair, uncouth in style, and 
3'et a great step in advance of coal grates in use at the time. 

While the coal, in ordinary grates, burned without 
smoke, spark, or flame, the flues of the chimneys built 
without adaptation to its use, proved so defective that tlie 
dust and sulphurous odor filling tiie low-roomed houses 
from the fires were almost insufferable. The venerable 
Dr. Peck informs the writer that when he came into the 
valley, in 1818, there were but two houses along the 
Lackawanna where stone-coal had made invasions upon 
the green wood pile and smutty fire-place. One was Pre- 
served Taylor's, the other at Von Storch's. At no place 
in Wyoming was there at this time more than a single 
grate used in any dwelling. Joseph Slocum, Lord Butler, 
Philip Myers, Charles Miner, Jacob Cist, George M. 
Hollenback, and perhaps a half-a-dozen others, comprised 
the entire number of individuals having even a single 
grate in their houses fifty years ago in Wyoming Valley.' 

' Dr. Peck. 



LACKAWAJ^NA VALLEY. 343 

The first coal taken from the vaUey of Wyoming in 
a canal-boat was started October 20, 1 832, 

WILLIAM AND MAURICE WURTS — EXPLORATION IX THE 
COAL-FIELD OF THE LACKAWANNA — CONCEPTION AND 
EARLY HISTORY OF THE DELAWARE AND HUDSON 
CANAL. 

The war of 1812, dissolving many arrogant illusions 
across the water, was a powerful if not the chief auxil- 
iary in the work of changing the passive and sedate char- 
acter of the Lackawanna coal-fields. 

This war, interrupting commercial intercourse with 
Liverpool and Virginia, cut off the supplies of fuel from 
those places so completely, that charcoal rose to a ruinous 
price. To the manufacturing interests of the countrj^, the 
consequences were, of course, highly disastrous. Men 
familiar with the nature of anthracite coal attempted to 
relieve this embarrassment if possible, by the discovery 
and introduction among manufacturers of tliis new kind 
of fuel. 

How their efforts were met and encouraged by tlie 
grand, great aggregate popular side in Philadelphia, the 
reader already understands. 

Long before the coal heart of the Lackawanna was 
startled by the drill of the miner, there was occasionally 
seen in the valley a young, self-reliant, and determined 
man, who, trained by experience in steady habits and 
modest bearing, acquired the honor, in connection with 
his elder brother Maurice, of planning and maturing 
schemes under the shadows of the Moosic, which gave an 
impulse to the interests of commerce, whose influence was 
immediate and broadcast throughout the world. Ener- 
getic and active, enjoying sound judgment, a robust body 
that wavered only after long exposure in vindicating his 
theory by a practical development, he roamed for a 
series of years along the stream from its headsprings be- 



344 HISTORY OF THE 

yond tlie coal-measure down to its staid outgoing. Tliis 
was William Wurts, a merchant of Pliiladelphia. 

His first hope, founded upon the obscure knowledge 
attainable at that early day of the contour and geological 
structure of the country, was to trace the coal up the val- 
ley of the Lackawanna, in the direction of the general 
trend of the mountain ranges, to the Delaware River. 
Obliged to abandon this idea, and still retaining the Dela- 
ware in view as the grand highway for the transportation 
of his coal to market, his next conception was to reach 
the nearest tributary of that stream, the Lackawaxen^ 
leading a quiet life upon the opposite side of the Moosic 
This barrier between the Lackawanna and Lackawaxen, 
guarded by woods and granite, like the calumet offered as 
a token of peace, increased rather than abated the fervor 
of his enthusiasm. 

The explorations of Mr. Wurts, commencing about 
1812, were extended by himself and subsequently by his 
agents over the central and northern portion of the valley 
while it was as rugged as when it offered no longer a home 
to the Monseys. None of the eastern passes in the Moosic, 
viz. : Rixe's, Wagner's, and Cobb's had ever been marked 
for a road, with the exception of the latter one. These he 
repeatedly examined, with a view of finding a passage 
from the coal-mines to the headsprings of the Lacka- 
waxen, tlirough whose waters it was supposed that coal 
could be carried toward an eastern market. 

A trivial incident favored the researches and designs of 
Mr. Wurts. While searching up and down the Lacka- 
wanna he came across a hunter, named David Nobles, 
familiar with places where black stones could be readily 
pointed out. The State of Pennsylvania had not at this 
time withdrawn its prerogative of imprisonment for debt. 
David Nobles, struggling in vain with poverty he inher- 
ited, being threatened for a trifiing debt by an extortion- 
ate neighbor in the county of Wayne, tied to the woods 
with his gun to avoid the officer and the jail. Mr. Wurts 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 345 

found him rambling over Ragged Island, heard his simple 
story, and, after giving him the wherewithal to secure his 
exemption from arrest, employed him to hunt coal and 
bring knapsacks of provisions over the mountain from 
the township of Canaan, where a few farmers lived. He 
became, during the summer months, the inseparable com- 
panion of the pioneer, sounding his way up the winding 
•of the Lackawanna. His knowledge of the woods and 
location of coal territory made him competent as a guide 
And invaluable as an employee. 

After the discovery of vast bodies of coal upon lands, 
the possession of which w^as essential in maturing the 
•original purpose, Mr. Wurts and Nobles visited Northum- 
berland to purchase them. As the shabby exterior of 
Mr. Nobles carried no dignity, nor awakened suspicions 
of wealth or any ulterior object, he was selected to make 
preliminary negotiations and the final purchase. Nobles 
intimated to the owner, who had no knowledge of the 
eyes glancing longingly over his waste of acres, that he 
and his numerous brothers desired to farm it on a large 
scale somewhere along the frontier, where a considerable 
tract of wild land could be bought for a trifle. The 
owner, eager to accept any definite otfer for lands hitherto 
unsought by the settlers below, readily acquiesced in the 
terms of sale. Mr. Nobles, unable to make payment 
himself, called in "his friend" Wurts, in whose name the 
contract was signed for possessions, which gave him the 
key to a coal fortress first assailed in the valley. 

By such artifices, honorable and ingenious as they were, 
Mr. Wurts secured control of several thousand acres of 
coal land in the county of Luzerne, in the year of 1814. 
The cost of the land at this time was but fifty cents to 
three dollars per acre. The giant timber spread over it 
was of no account, and much of it upon the site of Car- 
bondale was felled and burned away to prepare it for the 
reception of the cabins of the workmen. These pur- 
chases made by an expenditure now considered nominal 



346 HISTORY OF THE 

and vague, included the region where Carbondale and 
Archbald are located, with a portion of the intervening 
land, and a small section in Providence, on the Anderson 
farm, above Cobb's Gap ; where, in 1814, he opened the- 
seven and nine feet veins of coal to obtain specimens for 
exhibitions in Philadelphia, New York, and other sec-^ 
tions of country. 

Hon. Paul S. Preston, of Stockport, Pennsylvania, now 
hale and hearty, in his 73d year, a warm friend of the late 
Col. Scranton and the Erie road, who, in 1849, predicted 
"that the transit of coal north and west, within the next 
quarter of a century would exceed that of the present 
day to the south and the east," ^ thus writes : "In 1804, 
my father run an exploration line from Stockport to Mis- 
shoppen, passing through what is now known as (I believe) 
Gris wold's Gap. In crossing the Lackawanna Creek, he 
discovered stone-coal, with which he had become ac- 
quainted in Western Virginia and on the Monongahela as 
a surveyor previous to his location at Stockport. 

" In the year 1814, I heard my father tell Maurice Wurts 
in Market Street, Philadelphia, ' Maurice, thee must hold 
on to that lot on the Lackawanna, that you took for debt 
of David Nobles, it will be very valuable some day as it 
has stone-coal on it and under it.' Whether Maurice was- 
aware of that fact before, I know not. The lot, however, 
was Tiling on to. Its location was where Carbondale now 
stands." The next important event connected with the 
liistory of the earliest coal operations in the valley, was 
an attempt made by Wurts in the year 1815, to transport 
the coal he had mined at this isolated point, to the Wal- 
lenpaupack or some stream leading into it. 

On the opposite side of the Moosic Range in the adjoin- 
ing county of Wayne, threads along its base a narrow 
creek, whose dark languid waters are so hid by the rank 
alders and iron-like laurel, as to be concealed from the 

' See Auburn "Daily Advertiser," Jan. 19, 1819. 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 347 

view, until its marshy border is almost ])assed. TJiis is 
" Jones's Creek," one of the upper and larger branches of 
the Wallenpaupack. Being eight or nine miles only from 
the coal-mines opened in Providence, this creek, from its 
convenient proximity, was selected as one of ani[)](- capa- 
city, after the removal of ordinary obstructions, to carry 
light rafts and a small quantity of anthracite down to 
the Paupack. The whole summer of this year was spent 
by Mr. Noble in clearing this stream of the interlocking 
logs and drift-wood. After a raft had been lashed 
together, two sled-loads of the lirst coal ever carried from 
the Lackawanna, were loaded upon it. 

A long, heavy rain had so swollen the volume of water, 
that when the raft swung out into the current with its 
glistening freight, it ran safely for the distance of nearly 
a mile, when, encountering a projecting rock, the frail 
Hoat went to pieces, and the coal sank into the flood. 
Thus were the hopes of the young Philadelphian baffled 
at the very onset, and the busy world neither delighted 
nor grieved at the result. 

The mind of Wurts, refusing rest, allowed no transient 
failure to alienate or defer the maturing of his specific 
scheme. 

The old Connecticut road from the Delaware to Wyo- 
ming, in passing over Cobb's Mountain, came within a 
few miles of the two mines opened by Wurts. Over this, 
to the slackened waters of the Wallenpaupack, one of the 
tributaries of the Lackawaxen, and about twenty miles 
distant, coal was next drawn on sleds by the slow ox- 
team. Here rafts were constructed from dry pine-trees, 
on which coal was taken as far as Wilson ville Falls, 
where this stream, narrowing to about seventy feet in 
width at the top, leaps over three consecutive ledges of 
rocks of flfty feet each with singular force and beauty. 
The coal being carried around these falls upon wagons to 
the eddy in the Lackawaxen, was reloaded into arks and 
taken thence to the Delaware, and if these were not stove 



348 HISTORY OF THE 

up in their downward passage readied Philadelphia, 
where nobody wanted the '' black staff," as all the blow- 
ing and stirring given to it did not make it burn. 

But little coal, and this at a ruinous expense, was taken 
over this route, and it being abandoned as a complete 
failure, led to operations farther up the valley in the wil- 
derness, in the vicinity of Rixe's Gap. Here we next find 
Maurice Wurts associated with his brother William, min- 
ing coal on the Lackawanna, at the spot now called Car- 
bondale. This was in 1822, and eight years before the 
North Branch Canal was put under contract from Nanti- 
coke to the mouth of the Lackawanna. The scene of their 
operations was a bluff which rises upon the western side 
of the town, then forming the immediate bank of the 
river, whose channel has since been diverted. Here these 
determined, far-seeing pioneers in the coal-fields kept their 
men at work until late in the fall, forming a sort of 
encampment in the woods, sleeping on hemlock boughs 
and leaves before a large camp-fire, and transporting their 
provisions for miles upon horseback. The mine was kept 
free from water by a rude pumping-apparatus moved by 
the current of the river, and when the accumulation of 
ice upon it obstructed its movements, a large grate made 
of nail-rods was put in blast, in which a fire of coal was 
continually kept burning and removing the difiiculty. In 
this slow laborious manner they succeeded at great expense 
in taking out about eight hundred tons of coal, which 
they intended to have drawn upon sleds over the moun- 
tain through Rixe's Gap to the Lackawaxen during the 
winter, in order to be floated down the Delaware to Phil- 
adelphia in the spring. The winter of 1823 being unusu- 
ally mild, snow remaining on the ground but few weeks 
in heavy drifts, only about one hundred tons were drawn 
over to the rafting-place, a distance of about twenty miles, 
via Cherry Ridge. 

Instead of arks, found to be too expensive and easily 
broken in their downward passage, dry pine-trees were 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 349 

cut, rolled into the stream, and lashed together raft-like, 
upon which as much coal was deposited as would safely 
float, and thus taken down the Lackawaxen and Dela- 
ware to Philadelphia. 

The price of anthracite coal in this city at this time w^as 
but ten or twelve dollars per ton. At these figures it was 
estimated that a remunerative profit awaited coal trans- 
ported in this manner, or even in the unreliable ark, 
provided the navigation of the Lackawaxen was made 
safe by practical slack-water improvements. 

In 1823, Maurice Wurts was autlioiized and empowered 
by the Legislature of Pennsylvania thus to improve the 
navigation of this short, wild stream. In the mean time, 
the supply of coal from the Schuylkill and Lehigh 
regions, small as it was, had so reduced the price as to 
preclude any hope of a profit such as would justify the 
expenditure, unless a new and better market could first 
be found or created. 

The demand for coal at this time can be perceived from 
the fact, that during the entire year of 1820, only 365 tons 
of anthracite were sent to market — ^just one ton a day 
to supply every demand in the city of Philadelphia. 

In 1823, only 6,000 tons of anthracite were carried to 
the sea-board in the whole United States, being consid- 
erably less than the amount now used in the Lackawanna 
Valley every day in the year. 

New York and the Lackawanna Valley, linked together 
by the social chain of canal, railroad, and river, mutually 
dependent upon each other, knew no interest in common 
until schooled by the active and persistent agency of the 
Wurtses. The original plan of looking to Philadelphia for 
a source of revenue being frustrated by the reduced price 
of coal, Maurice Wurts, in whom the privilege of im- 
proving the navigation of the Lackawaxen was vested, 
and who had now become largely interested in the enter- 
prise, conceived the project of reaching New York by a 
direct canal communication between the Delaware and 



350 HISTORY OF THE 

Hudson rivers. With the hope of accomplishing tliig 
object, the exploration of the route on which the Dela- 
Avare and Hudson Canal has since been constructed, was 
undertaken by William Wurts alone ; and, after such a 
superficial inspection as he could give it without an actual 
survey, he concluded that the favorable character of the 
ground, especially through southern New York, and the 
abundant supply of water-power at the very beginning of 
the route, would justify the prosecution of the enterprise. 

The project of connecting the two localities by a water 
communication, favored and understood by few, received 
a primary and definite form, and although there seemed 
to have been no just appreciation of the difficulties to be 
surmounted, or the physical labor and expense incurred 
in maturing a scheme full of advantage and traffic to the 
valley, these two gentlemen determined to lend all their 
energies to its completion. 

The needful legislation from the respective States of 
Pennsylvania and New York was obtained by tlieir 
unaided efforts, and after an abortive attempt to interest 
residents upon the route, or those living in the valley, 
so as to obtain a general fund for tiie preliminary survey, 
they engaged Benjamin Wright, then the most experienced 
engineer in the countr}^ to make the necessary surveys 
and estimate at their own expense. 

The report of the engineer, made in 1824, confirmed 
the most sanguine calculations of the projectors as to 
the practicability of the work ; but the estimate of its 
cost ($1,300,000) was discouraging, and to obtain sub- 
scriptions for such an amount of money, at that time, 
for such a work, seemed almost hopeless. Capitalists 
naturally viewed with distrust a proposition to construct 
a railroad over a mountain, whose cliffs seemed to exult 
over physical ingenuity and science ; and when these 
energetic men began to talk of opening a canal navi- 
gation through an unknown region, at a period, too, 
when such undertakings were regarded, even under the 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 351 

most favorable circunib^tance?, as uiii-emiiiK^rativo and of 
doubtful propriety, many persons, representing tlie current 
of popular thought, unconscious of the celebrity awaiting 
these gentlemen foi- tlu^r good judgment and cheerful 
perseverance, weic active and clamorous in predicting 
ruin and dishonor. 

Happily for the interests of the country at large and 
the valley especially, the inflexible men, inured to fatigue 
and encampment upon rocks, who had glowed with the 
hope of bearing the work across the country dividing the 
Hudson from the shallow Dy berry, inherited the requisite 
force and ability to urge it to a fjworable issue. They 
recognized no opposition from any quarter. Conscious 
that a failure would compromise forever their positions 
as business men, and number their names among dis- 
honest schemers, they concentrated every available re- 
source to foster and advance the great enterprise. 

Their plans, considered after repeated tramps over the 
mountain, was to cross the Moosic by inclined planes, 
connecting the railroad with the canal on its eastern side, 
at the greatest elevation at which water could be obtained 
from the natural ponds strung along the western terminus 
of the route. ^ 

Almost on the very summit of the Moosic, nestles 
among the spruce and oak one of the loveliest sheets of 
water found anywhere in the countr}^ known as " Cobb's 
Mountain Pond." Around it gathers tlie forest, nowhere 
broken by a clearing, and aside from tlie light step of the 
deer upon the margin, or the sail of tlie wild bird over 
its surface, no evidence of animated nature appears. 

Upon one side of the pond, the waters are so shallow 

' It may be interesting to die local reader to learn, tlint in the original survey of 
the proposed route, the western terminus of the canal was to be at Keene's, or 
Hoadley's Pond, in Wayne County, a distance of only four or five miles from the 
coal-fields. These ponds, estimated at a capacity of sixty acres, when united, 
were to be converted into reservoirs, and were supposed to be capable of fur- 
nishing the contemplated canal with the necessary supply of water at any extra- 
ordinary drought brought by summer. 



352 HISTORY OF THE 

that the tourist can wade Imndieds of feet toward its- 
center, over white sand, without even wetting the knee, 
while the northern side sends its bank down almost per- 
pendicular for a great distance. In the center of this 
waveless sheet there exists a perceptible movement of 
the water or mimic maelstrom, able to swing around a log- 
canoe. The pond, fed by unseen springs, finds a con- 
siderable outlet, and forms the upper tributary of the 
Wallenpaupack. The idea was early entertained by 
William Wurts of bringing coal to this pond, some seven 
miles from Providence, using it as the highest reservoir 
for the canal. To carry out this plan, it was proposed 
that subscriptions should be opened for a capital stock 
of $1,500,000, and the Delaware and Hudson Canal and 
Banking Company be organized. 

The undertaking was greatly in advance of the knowl- 
edge and comprehension of the day, and yet so lucid and 
convincing were the arguments of Maurice and William 
Wurts in relation to the coal subject, that when the books 
were opened in New York the subscriptions exceeded the 
amount authorized by the charter. 

While wiser men were thus interpreting the wants of 
the world, by opening a way into the Lackawanna 
Mountains, the great popular mind had given little dis- 
cussion to the theme. In fact, the first element of making 
coal-fires had to be taught in New York in the same spirit 
of Christian liberality and patience given to Philadelphia 
by Messrs. Miner, Wurts, and others, a few years before. 

A few persons, spurning pupilage in so plain an affair 
as making a fire, failing to secure heat by putting the 
coal in the bottom of the stove and the wood on top,. 
refused to have further dealing with the dusky invention. 

Stoves and grates, adapted to the use of anthracite coal, 
being put up in New York, Philadelphia, and Albany^ 
by the agency of these earnest gentlemen, not only demon- 
strated to the observer the great superiority of anthra- 
cite over charcoal and wood as a fuel, but, in spite of strong 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 353 

natural prejudices arrayed against tlie project, it found 
among reflecting minds a steady growth and advocacy. 

The canal, commenced in 1826, was completed in 1828. 
Originally constructed for boats of thirty tons, it subse- 
quently was enlarged for those of fifty tons, and within 
the past few years has again been so altered and improved 
as to admit boats of one hundred and thirty tons. The 
arrangements of this company have been judiciously 
made at different points, such as Carbondale, Honesdale, 
Olyphant, Providence, &c., for the accommodation of an 
extensive business. Tlieir capital now exceeds fifteen 
millions of dollars. 

To show how far the results of this pioneer enterprise 
from the valley have transcended the narrow views of the 
community of that recent period, both with regard to its 
capabilities and the use of coal, it may be stated, that 
the idea of transporting one hundred thousand tons of 
coal 'per annum over the railroad and canal (upon Avhich 
idea the capacity of the former was at first based) was 
at first scouted by many as preposterous, as regarding 
both the disposal of, and the ability to deliver, such an 
uuheard-of amount, whereas, during the last year (1868), 
there was transported over this highway, by the Dela- 
ware and Hudson Canal Company, nearly two million 
tons of coal.^ 

When this young enterprise was struggling its w^ay 
into popular favoi-, equipoised between extennination 
and a possible triumph, it did not escape the jealousy of 
men engaged in transporting coal from the Lehigh, The 
product of the mines had to force itself into a market over 
the heads of envious and crafty competitors. 

Unfortunately for the company, the small quantity of 
coal taken to New York from the coal-pits at Carbondale, 
in 1829, being surface coal that had lain for ages exposed 
to the action of the elements, furnished plausible grounds 

' 1,840,681.06 tons. 



354 



HIOTOKY OF THE 



apparently for the statements of rival companies, that the 
Lackawanna coal offered by the Wurtses was quite value- 
less, or if otherwise, it was boldly asserted that the works 
of this compan}'^ were so imperfect in their construction, 
and so perishable in character, as not to be capable of 
passing a sufficient amount of tonnage to pay interest 
upon the original cost. 

Indeed, to those who looked searchingly into the mat- 
ter, with the imperfect knowledge possessed at that day, 
the Moosic Mountain range might well have proved a 
great stumbling-block in the way of this artificial outlet 
to the valley. Habit has now so familiarized us with the 
triumph of physical science over natural obstacles, that 
we have ceased to feel or express astonishment at results, 
which at that day were dismissed from the consideration 
of rational men as visionary, foolish, and forbidding. Tlie 
mode of overcoming elevations by means of inclined 
planes was then almost untried, imperfectly known, and 
little appreciated. The works at Rixe's Gap were the 
first of this kind projected in this country on any con- 
siderable scale. Much credit is due to the engineers 
having charge of these works, and especially to Mr. 
James Archibald, for many ingenious and highly efficient 
contrivances connected with them. 

There is one interesting feature connected with the early 




FIRST LOCnMOTIVIC RUN IN AMKHK'A 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 355 

history of this road. The Jlmt locomoUm enguie intro- 
duced and worked in America was run a shoi't distance upon 
it in 1828, and Hone's Dahi' oifered its friendly gh^n for the 
purpose of conducting the experiment. This locomotive, 
called the " Stourbridge Lion," was ))uilt in England, of 
the best workmanship and material, and most approved 
pattern of that date. As compared with the powerful, 
compact, and simply constructed engines of the present 
day, it was complicated, unwieldy, top-heavy, and of 
inconsiderable power, as will be seen by the accompany- 
ing illustration, copied from an exact drawing of the 
original, in the hands of R. Manville, Esq., Superintend- 
ent of the Railroad Department. 

The village of Honesdale, the eastern terminus of the 
railroad and the western of the canal, lies snugly in the 
bottom of a canal- like intervale, where, a single week 
before the conception of these works, rose one dark mass 
of laurel and hemlock, through wiiicli the LackaAvaxeii, 
once famous for trout-lishing, after meeting with the 
I)y berry, gropes silently along under Irving' s Clilf. 

The road passed out of Honesdale by a sharp south- 
westerly cuive, with a moderate grade, and ^^■as canied 
over the Lacka waxen by a long lienilock trestling, 
considered too frail by many to suppoi-t the great weight 
of the mysterious-looking engine all ready for the hazard- 
ous journey. As the crowd, gathered from far and near, 
expected that bridge, locomotiv^e, and all, would plunge 
into the stream the moment passage was attempted, no 
one dared to run the locomotive across the chasm but 
Major Horatio Allen, who, amid exultation and praise, 
passed over the bridge and a portion of the road in safety. 
The engine, however, was soon abandoned, as the slender 
trestling, formin;- much of the body of the road, suf- 
liciently strong for ordinary cars, was found too feeble 
for its weiglit and weai-. 

' Named from the late Philip Hone. 



356 HI&TORY OF THE 

Major Horatio Allen, the engineer of tlie New York and 
Erie Railroad, gives the following account of the first trip 
made by a locomotive on this continent : — 

''When was it? Who was it? And who awakened 
its energies and directed its movements ? It was in the 
year 1828, on the banks of the Lackawaxen, at the com- 
mencement of the railroads connecting the canal of the 
Delaware and Hudson Canal Company with their coal 
mines — and he who addresses you was the only person 
on that locomotive. The circumstances which led to my 
being alone on the road were these : The road had been 
built in the summer ; the structure was of hemlock timber, 
and rails of large dimensions notched on caps placed far 
apart. The timber had cracked and warped from expos- 
ure to the sun. After about three hundred feet of straight 
line, the road crossing the Laxa waxen Ci'eek on trestle- work 
about thirty feet high, with a curve of three hundred and 
fifty-five to four hundred feet i-adius. The impression 
was very general that the iron monster would either break 
down the road, or it would leave the track at the curve 
and plunge into the creek. 

"My reply to such apprehensions Avas that it was too 
late to consider the probability of such occurrences ; 
there was no other course than to have a trial made of the 
strange animal which had been brought here at a great 
expense ; but that it was not necessary that more than 
one should be involved in its fate ; that I would take the 
first ride alone, and the time would come when I should 
look back to the incident with great interest. 

"As I placed my hand on the throttle-valve handle, I 
was undecided whether I would move slowly or with a 
fair degree of speed ; but believing that the road would 
prove safe, and preferring, if we did go down, to go hand- 
somely, and without any evidence of timidity, I started 
with considerable velocity, passed the curve over the 
creek safely, and was soon out of hearing of the vast 
assemblage. At the end of two or three miles I reversed 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 357 

the valve and returned without accident, having thus 
made the first raih-oad trip by k)comotive on the ^vest- 
ern hemisphere." 

This primitive machine was finally switched off tlie track, 
a house built over it, and instead of being treasured as a 
relic of early engineering in the New World surpassed by 
no other, its rusted combination was partially destroyed 
and scattered, quarter of a centur}^ ago. Some portions 
of it are yet in use in Carbondale. 

It might have been supposed by intelligent men, that 
after the authors of this canal and railroad had shown 
their operations to be practical and effective, when by 
vast expenditure of means, time, and labor, the most 
exhausting, their enterprise was completed, their physical 
efforts and mental anxieties w^ould have been rewarded 
with respite and profit : subsequent events assured them 
that their labors had just begun. The cost of these 
improvements liad far exceeded the original estimate, and 
a large debt had thus been necessarily conti'acted in their 
progress. The market for coal was so limited that a small 
amount supplied the demand, and if it did not forbode 
the disruption of the company, it alienated all hope of 
immediate gain or dividend. Before the resources of the 
company were developed, financial difficulties accumu- 
lated. More than this, the cry of monopoly w^as arrayed 
against it, at a time when the shares, first costing $100 
each, had been six or seven years on the hands of the 
stockholders without yielding a single dividend, and had 
therefore, in effect, cost about $140 per share, could 
actually be bought in the market at the time for about 
$48 to $50 per share, or half what it had already cost. 

The Wurts brothers, undaunted by these adverse aus- 
pices, abated none of their confidence in a cause whose 
fate involved their own integrity as well as the interest of 
every valley tenant, taught by the narrow-minded to dis- 
trust and oppose its success. Maurice Wurts (who had 
superintended the canal during its constructinii, and 



358 HISTORY OF THE 

resigned his office wlieii it was completed) undertook, in 
this exigency, the superintendence of an important depart- 
ment of tlie company's business, while his brother John, 
then a prominent member of Congress, of the Philadel- 
phia bar, assumed the presidency. These gentlemen 
devoted their lives to promote and vindicate tlie material 
interests of the company, and the proud, high, firm posi- 
tion it has attained to-day, is much, if not mainly due to 
the constant care and industry with which its affairs, dur- 
ing a long series of years, sometimes hostile, were con- 
ducted by them. This was done in such a broad spirit of 
fidelity to the entire associated interests, that no charge 
of self-aggrandizement or greedy selfishness emanated 
from the most capricious. 

Not only was tlie very existence of the company imper- 
iled by financial dangers formidable in their character, 
but legislative bodies, moved by the leverage of personal 
jealousies and faiu^ied rivalry, labored to crush it, and 
tliis too, at the instigation of men whose private fortunes 
and social positions in life, came wholly from the opera- 
tions they wei-e seeking to arrest and destroy. The bene- 
fits which have arisen out of this undertaking, the general 
and generating influences it has exerted in the Lacka- 
wanna Valley, are various in kind and character, and are 
diffused over a wide region of country, as Avell as concen- 
trated in special localities. Prominent among these special 
localities, may be named New York City, and the Lacka- 
wanna Valley. Who can estimate the magnitude of the 
impulse which the introduction of cheap fuel has given 
to the growth of New York ? To tliis great outlet, con- 
ceived and matured by Maurice and William Wurts, is 
this great city indebted for the cheapening and supply 
of this desirable and indispensable fuel. The history of 
the company struggling for many years through appalling 
difficulties, indicates that even here, neither the benefits 
nor instrumentality by which it was attained, were appre- 
ciated by the many recipients. But no estimate can be 



LACKAWANNA VAI-LKY. 359 

made of the power whicli a work like this exercises over 
the affairs of a nation, in encouragino; piivate and stim- 
uhitino- public efforts for internal improvements. The 
material benefits thus conferred upon the valley, in the 
highest degree advantageous and practical to the expand- 
ing activities east of the Alleghanies, can be estimated 
readily by simply comparing the average value of coal 
land and property noio and before the maturity of this 
enterprise. The entire length of the canal, including 
three miles of slack-water navigation, is 111 miles* the 
railroad from Honesdale to Providence, thirty-two miles. 

This road, vrith but a single exception, the oldest in the 
country, represents more wealth, for one of its length, 
than any other one in America. 

During the last yeax the company have entered into 
arrangements with the Baltimore Coal and Union Railroad 
Company, whereby they control the railroad from Provi- 
dence to the Baltimore mines, near Wilkes Barre, together 
with the mines upon that justly celebrated property. 

They have also completed an arrangement with the 
Northern Coal and Iron Company, for the coal in the 
property, recently purchased by the latter company of 
the Plymouth and Boston companies. This property 
is located on the west side of the Susquehanna, in Ply- 
mouth, and is considered to be one of the most valuable 
properties in Wyoming Valley. 

The canal company also control the railroad and bridge 
of the Plymouth and Wilkes Barre Railroad and Bridge 
Company, which connects the property upon the west 
side of tlie river with the system of railroads upon the 
east side. 

These alliances, w^ith other recent acquisitions, give the- 
canal company a position from which it can ship coal in 
all directions, and place it in the front rank of the great 
coal corporations of the country.' 

' Statemeat of Coal mined and forwarded by tlie Delaware and Hudson Canall 



300 HISTORY OF THE 

The Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, preserving 
the same wise policy inaugurated by William and Maurice 
Wurts, of giving great discretionary power to their officers 
at the primary or mining end of the line, have prospered 
beyond expectation or measure under the judicious man- 
agement of Thomas Dickson, vice-president of the road, 
and his able assistant managers, E. W. Weston, R. 
Manville, and C. F. Young. 

George T. Olyphant, of New York, is now the presi- 
dent of this company ; its vast interest in the Wyoming 

Company for the year ending Deceml^er 10, 1868, with sources whence re- 
ceived: — 

SENT NORTH. 

Delav)are and Hudson Canal Company's Mines. 

Carbondale.. .330,770 12 

Grassy Island 97,724 14 

Olyphant 294,041 19 

Providence 31G,301 04 

1,038,838 09 
Contractor's Mines. 

John Jermyn 171,298 10 

Eaton & Co 141,418 10 

B. & L. C. Co 95,182 13 

?:ik Hill Coal Co 62,753 04 

Filer & Co./ 12,347 17 

Mineral Spring Coal Co 541 04 

483,541 18 
Baltimore Coal and Union Railroad Compani/s Mines. 

Mill Creek 111,722 04 

Baltimore 53,770 09 

165,492 13 

Total l,i;87,873 00 

SENT SOUTH. 

Baltimore Coal and Union Railfroad Company's Mines. 
Alill Creek and Baltimore Mines 152,808 06 

Total production for 1868 ='1,840,681 06 

Total production for 1867 1,468,314 10 

Increased production for 1808 372,366 16 

* or 2,061,565 tons of 2,000 pounds. 



LACKAWANNA VAr.LKY. 363 

and Lackawanna valleys, however, come under the Juris- 
diction of Thomas Dickson, of Scrantou. The village of 
Olyphant derived its name from one, wliile tlie young 
mining town of Dickson received its appellation from the 
other. With a clear head and a disposition to turn hard 
work to some account, Thos. Dickson came from Scotland, 
quarter of a century ago, to try his fortune in the mountain 
ranges of Pennsylvania. Although not ' ' to the manor 
born," he has, by the aid of a practical turn of mind and 
steady habits, made his way from the humble place of a 
mule-drirjer, in the Carbondale mines, to the honorable 
position he now occupies, with a rapidity and steadiness 
almost romantic — thus presenting to the young men of 
the country an illustration of the triumphs of a life of 
probity and ambitious industry w^orthy of emulation. 

FALLING OF THE CAKBONDALK MINES. 

Those who have never entered the midnight chambers 
of a coal-mine, far away in the earth, where no sound is 
heard but the miner's drill or the report of a blast in 
some remote gallery, and no light ever enters but the 
lamps on the workmen's caps, which are seen moving 
about like will-o'-the-wisps as the men are mining or 
loading the coal into little cars, can not understand how 
perilous the miner's occupation, or how much the place 
he works in reminds one of the great pit itself, onl}' this, 
in the language of the miner, is free from "the hate of 
summer." Some of the mines are mere low, jet-black 
coal-holes, gloomy as the tombs of Thebes, while others 
have halls and chambers of cyclopean proportions, along 
which are constant openings into cross-chambers or gal- 
leries, some sloping downward, some upward, in which 
roll along cars, drawn by mules, accompanied by a boy 
as driver. Accidents not unfrequently happen in the 
mines, by the explosion of powder, as the lamps are 
continually around it ; by the falli.ig of slate or coal. 



364 HISTORY OF TEIE 

before props are placed to support the treacherous roof ; 
and sometimes by the falling in of the mines themselves. 
After all the coal is taken from one stratum or vein, miners 
frequently remove the pillars or props from the cham- 
bers, so that the mines can fill in — this, in miner's 
language, is called " robbing the mines." 

During the winter of 1843 and '44, a portion of the 
Delaware and Hudson Canal Company's mines, at Car- 
bondale, "fell in" upon the workmen. Some days 
previous to the final crash, the mine, in the phrase of 
miners, began to "work," that is, the occasional cracking 
of the roof over where the men worked, denoted the 
danger of a fall. It came, and such was its force that all 
the lights in the mines were extinguished in an instant, 
while the workmen and horses, which were entering or 
retiring from the black mouth of the cavern, were blown 
from it as leaves are swept by the gale. The men who 
were at work in their narrow chambers farther in th(^ 
mine, heard the loud death-summons, and felt the crash 
of the earthquaked elements, as they were buried alive 
and crushed in the strong, black teeth of the coal -slate. 

One of the assistant superintendents of the mines, Mr. 
Alexander Bryden, was on the outside at the time tlie 
low, deep thundering of the rocks within came upon his 
ear. He hastened in to ascertain the cause of the disaster 
or the extent of the fall. Penetrating one of the dark 
galleries a short distance, he was met by three miners, 
who informed him that the mines had broken, killing and 
wounding many, and that they had just left behind them 
about twenty men, who were probably slain by the 
crushing slate. Although urged by the retreating men 
to turn back and save his own life, as there was no hope 
of rescuing their companions from death, the determined 
Scotchman pushed along the gloomy passage, amid the 
loosened and hissing rock, which, like the sword of the 
ancient tyrant, hung over liis head. He reached the edge 
of the fall. Earth and coal lay in vast masses around 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 365 

him, and here and there a body becoming detached from 
the parent roof, came down with sullen echo into the 
Egyptian darkness of the mines. Bry den, inured to danger 
from his youth, was not deterred. The dim light from his 
lamp revealed no passage, save a small opening made by 
the huge slabs, falling in such a manner by the side of 
the floor of the gallery as to form an angle. Through this 
aperture he crept upon his hands and knees ; as he pro- 
ceeded he found it so narrow that he was barely able to 
force himself along by lying prostrate upon his abdomen. 

About one mile from the mouth of the mines he reached 
the "heading," or the end of the chamber, where he 
found the twenty imprisoned miners uninjured, and 
inclosed in one fallen, black, solid body of coal ! One 
mile of wall between them and the outer world ! The 
brave Scotchman, whose lips whitened not until now, 
wept like a child, as he found among the number his own 
son ! The boy had the genius of the father. When one 
of the three retreating fugitives who had escaped from 
tlie mine proposed, as they left, to take away the horse 
confined here with the workmen, young Bryden, who 
feared the torture of starvation in that foodless cell, 
replied, '' Leave him here ; we shall need him I" 

Bryden was upon the point of leading out his men when 
he learned that another lay helplessly wounded, still far- 
tlier beyond this point, in the most dangerous part of the 
fall. On he continued his perilous mission until he enter- 
ed the lonely chamber, A feeble cry from the miner, who 
was aroused from his bed of slate by the glimmer of the 
approaching light, revealed a picture of the miner's life 
too familiar with the men wiio face danger in these cleft 
battle-grounds. Almost covered by the fallen strata, he 
lay half delirious with agony, blackened with coal-dirt, 
and limbs gashed and fj-actured with rock. Lifting the 
wounded man upon his shoulder, Bryden retraced his 
steps. For rods he bore him along, witli the broken, 
flaccid arms of the miner danslins: at his side. 



366 HISTORY OF THK 

When the rock was too low to permit this, he iirst 
crawled along the cavern himself, drawing his companion 
carefully after him. Through perils which none can 
appreciate who have not strode along the gloomy gal- 
leries of a coal-mine, he bore him full one mile before he 
reached the living world. 

The fall extended over an area of about forty acres, and 
although neither effort nor expense were withheld by the 
company or individuals, to rescue the living, or to re- 
cover the bodies of the dead, the remains of a few have 
never yet been found. One man was discovered some 
time afterward in a standing position, his pick and his 
dinner-pail b(^aring him company, while the greater por- 
tion of the liesli upon his bones appeared to have been 
eaten off by rats. 

Others, without water, food, or light, shut in from the 
world forever by the appalling wall of rock, coal, and 
slate around them, while breathing the scanty air, and 
suffei-ing in body and mind, agony the most intense, 
clinched tighter their picks, and wildly labored one long 
night that knew no day, until exhausted they sank, and 
died in the darkness of their rocky sepulchers, with no 
sweet voice to soothe — no kind angel to cool the burning 
temples, or catch the whispers from the spirit-land. 

Eight dead bodies were exhumed, and six were left in 
— one, the only son of a dependent widow. Mr. Hosie, 
one of the assistant superintendents of the mines, was in 
them at the time of the disaster, and escaped with his 
life. Creeping through the remaining crevices in the 
break upon his hands and knees, feeling his way along the 
blackness of midnight, where all traces of the general 
direction of the mine had disappeared, he often found 
himself in an aperture so narrow, that to retreat or advance 
seemed impossible. Once he was buried middle-deep by 
the rubbish as he was digging through. Another convul- 
sion lifted up the mass and relieved him. After being 
in the mines two days and nights, he emerged into sun- 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 867 

light, the flesh being worn from his linger-bones in his 
efforts to escape from the tomb-like captivity. 

EARLIEST MAIL ROUTE IN THE VALLEY. 

When the first and only post-office was established in 
the Lackawanna Valley in 1811, the mail was carried once 
a week on horseback from Wilkes Barre, via Capoose or 
Slocum Hollow, to Wilsonville, the original shire town of 
Wayne County, at the head of the Wallenpaiipack Falls, 
returning nia Bethany, Belmont, Montrose, and Tunkhau- 
nock. In 1762, or fifty years previous to this, the Rev. 
David Zisberger, sheltered only by trees and friendly wig- 
wams, made his way along the Indian pathway, from Fort 
Stanwix, New York, to Wyoming and Philadelphia, 
for a slight consideration, as can be seen by the fol- 
lowing receipt : — 

"Received ten pounds for my journey with Sr. Wm. 
Johnson' s Letter to Teedyuscung at Wyomink, & bringing 
his answer to Philadelphia. David Zisberger. 

"Apbii, oth, 17G2." ' 

Mail matter for the settlements upon the northeast 
branch of the Susquehanna and its larger tributaries came 
from Pliiladelphia, via Sunbury or Easton, to Wilkes 
Barre, whence it was diffused tardily through the broken 
openings of northern Pennsylvania. 

The inhabitants being few, and poor witlial, scattered 
over a wide range of territory, the post-office for the town- 
ship was sometimes located at a point where there stood 
but a single cabin, yet this did not render the operations 
of the office any the less harmonious or effective. 

There yet lives in the valley an old gentleman who 
prided in the duties of mail-boy from 1811-24, and who, 
during these dozen of years encountered dangers in ford- 
ing streams swift and swollen, traversing roads lined 
with stumps and stone, and yet, charactei-ized by a natu- 

' Documentary History of New York, p. 310 



368 HISTORY OF THE 

ral cheerfulness and love of fun himself, he sometimes- 
forgot the loneliness of his journey as he encountered 
humanity in its most amusing aspects, at the stopping - 
places on his route. 

" At one point," writes our informant, "the office was 
kept in a low, log bar-room, where, after the contents of 
the mail-pouch were emptied on the unswept floor, all the 
inmates gave slow and repeated motion to each respective 
paper and letter." 

Sometimes the mail-boy, finding no one at home but 
the children, who were generally engaged drumming on 
the dinner-pot, or the housewife, unctuous with lard and 
dough, lol-li-bye-babying a boisterous child to sleep, was 
compelled to act as carrier and postmaster himself. 

At another point upon the route, the commission of post- 
master fell upon the thick shoulders of a Dutchman, 
remarkable for nothing but his full, round stomach. This^ 
was his pride, and he would pat it incessantly while he 
dilated upon the virtues of his "krout" and his " frow." 

It would have been amazingly stupid for the Depart- 
ment to have questioned his order or integrity, for as the 
lean mail-bag came tumbling into his door from the saddle, 
the old comical Dutchman and his devoted wife carried it 
to a rear bedroom in his house, poured the contents upon 
the floor, where at one time it actually took them both 
from three o'clock one afternoon until nine the next morn- 
ing to change the mail ! Believing with Lord Bacon, that 
"knowledge is power," he detained about election time, 
all political documents directed to his opponents. These 
he carefully deposited in a safe place in his garret until 
after election day, when they were handed over with 
great liberality to those to whom they belonged, provided 
he was paid the postage. 

' ' At another remote place where the office was kept, the 
mail-bag being sometimes returned to the post-boy almost 
empty, led him to investigate the cause of this sudden 
collapse in a neighborliood inhabited by few. The pro- 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. iiby 

lific number of ten children, graduating from one to 
twenty in years, all called the postmaster "dad," and 
as none could read, letters and papers came to a dead stop 
on arriving thus far. As these were poured out on the 
floor among pans and kettles, each child would seize a 
package, exclaiming, this is for me, and this for you, and 
that for some one else, until the greater bulk of mail-mat- 
ter intended for other offices was parceled out and 
appropriated, and never heard of again." 

THE PENNSYLVANIA COAL (JO.MPANY. 

The definite and successful character of the coal schemes 
devised by the Wurts brothers, tested amidst every pos- 
sible element of discouragementand liostility, inclined ca])i- 
talists to glance toward the hills from Avhence coal sloAvly 
drifted to the sea-board. Drinker and Mereditli, aiming at 
reciprocal objects, and alive to venture and enterprise, 
rach obtained a charter for a railroad in the valley, 
Avhich, owing to the absence of capital, proved of no prac- 
tical value at the time to any one. 

Twenty-one years after coal was carried from Carbon- 
dale by railroad toward a Xew York market, the Penn- 
sylvania Coal Company began the transportation of their 
coal from the Lackawanna. This company, the second 
one operating in the valley, was incorporated by the 
Pennsylvania Legislature in 1838, with a capital of $200, 000. 
The proposed road w^as to connect Pittston with the Dela- 
ware and Hudson Canal at some point along the Wallen- 
paupack Creek in the county of Wayne. 

The (jommissioners appointed in this act organized the 
company in the spring of 1839, and commenced operat- 
ing in Pittston on a small scale. After mining a limited 
quantity of coal from their lands — of whicli the}' were 
allowed to hold one thousand acres— it was taken down 
the North Branch Canal, finding a market at Harrisburg 
and other towns along the Susquehnnna. 



370 HISTORY OF THE 

Simultaneously with the grant of this charter, another 
was given to a body of gentlemen in Honesdale, known 
as the Washington Coal Company, with a capital of 
$300,000, empowered to hold two thousand acres of land 
in the coal basin. This last charter, lying idle for nine 
years, was sold to William Wurts, Charles Wurts, and 
others of Philadelphia, in 1847. 

In 1845, the first stormy impulse or excitement in coal 
lands went through the central and lower part of the val- 
ley. Large purchases of coal property were made for a 
few wealthy men of Philadelphia, who had reconnoitered 
the general features of the country with a view of con- 
structing a railroad from the Lackawanna to intersect the 
Delaware and Hudson Canal near the mouth of the Pau- 
pack. 

Tlie preliminary surveys upon the proposed route had 
barely commenced, before there sprang up in Providence 
and Blakeley, opposition of the most relentless and for- 
midable character. Men who had hitherto embarrassed 
the company mining coal in Carbondale during its infancy, 
found scope here for their remaining malignity. The 
most plausible ingenuity was employed to defeat the 
entrance of a road whose operations could not fail to 
inspire and enlarge every industrial activity along its 
border. Meeting after meeting was held at disaffected 
points, having for their object the destruction of the very 
measures, which, when matured, were calculated to result 
as they did to the advantage of those who opposed them. 
It was urged with no little force, that if these Philadel- 
phians " seeking the blood of the country," were allowed 
to make a railroad through Cobb's Gap, the only natural 
key or eastern outlet to the valley, the rich deposits of 
coal and iron remaining in the hands of the settlers would 
be locked in and rendered useless forever. Such falla- 
cious notions, urged by alms-asking demagogues with 
steady clamor upon a people jealous of their preroga- 
tives, inflamed the public mind for a period of three years 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 371 

against this company, but after sacli considerations as 
selfish agitators will sometimes covet and accept tranquil- 
ized opposition, those amicable relations which have since 
existed with the country commenced. 

In 1846, the Legislature of Pennsylvania passed "an act 
incorporating the Luzerne and Wayne Railroad Company, 
with a capital stock of $500,000, \vith authority to con- 
struct a road from the Lacka waxen to the Lackawanna." 

Before this company manifested organic life, its charter, 
confirmed without reward, and tliat of the Washington 
Coal Company being purchased, were merged into the 
Pennsylvania Coal Company, by an act of the Legislature 
passed in 1849. 

This road, whose working capacity is equal to one and 
a half million tons per annum, Avas commenced in 1848 ; 
completed in May, 1850. It is forty-seven miles in length, 
passing with a single track from the coal-mines on the Sus- 
quehanna at Pittston to those lying near Cobb's Gap, ter- 
minating at the Delaware and Hudson Canal at tlie spirited 
village of Hawley. It is worked at moderate expense, and 
in the most simple manner for a profitable coal-road — the 
I'ars being drawn up the mountain by a series of station- 
ary steam-eng-ines and planes, and then allow^ed to run by 
their own weight, at a rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, 
down a grade sufficiently descending to give the proper 
momentum to the train. The movement of the cars is so 
easy, that there is but little wear along the iron pathway, 
while the too rapid speed is checked by the slight appli- 
cation of brakes. No railroad leading into the valley 
makes less noise ; none does so really a remunerative 
business, earning over ten per cent, on its capital at the 
present low prices of coal ; thus illustrating the great 
superiority of a "gravity road" over all others for tlie 
cheap transportation of anthracite over the ridges sur- 
rounding the coal-fields of Pennsylvania. 

The true system, exemplified twenty years ago by its 
present superintendent, John B. Smith, Esq., of uniting 



372 HISTORY OF THE 

the interests of the laboring-man with those of tlie com- 
pany, as far as possible, has been one of tlie most efficient 
measures whereby " strikes" have been obviated, and the 
general pros])erity of the road steadily advanced. 

Through the instrumentality of Mr. Smith tliis has been 
done in a manner so uniform yet unobtrusive, as to mak(- 
it a model coal-road. It carries no passengers. 

This company, having a capital of about $4,()00,00(i, 
gives employment to over three thousand men. 

FROM PITTSTON TO IIAWLEY. 

A ride upon a coal-train over the gravity road of the 
Pennsylvania Coal Company, from Pittston to Hawley, is 
not without interest or incident. Starting from the banks 
of the Susquehanna, it gradually ascends the border of 
the Moosic Mountain for a dozen miles, when, as if 
refreshed by its slow passage up the rocky way, it hur- 
ries the long train down to the Dyberry at Hawley witli 
but a single stoppage. 

Let the tourist willing to blend venture witli pleasure, 
step upon the front of the car as it ascends Plane No. 2, 
at Pittston, and brings to view the landscape of Wyoming 
Valley, with all its variet}^ of plain, river, and mountain, 
made classic by song and historic by her fields of blood. 
The Susquehanna, issuing from the highland lakes of Ot- 
sego, flows along, equaled only in beauty by the Rhine, 
through a region famed for its Indian history — the mas- 
sacre upon its fertile plain, and the sanguinary conflict 
between the Yankees and Pennymites a century ago. The 
cars, freighted with coal, move their spider-feet toward 
Hawley. Slow at first, they wind around curve and hill^ 
gathering speed and strength as they oscillate over ravine, 
woodland, and water. Emerging from deep cuts or dense 
woods, the long train approaches Spring Brook, Cross- 
ing this trout stream upon a trestling thrown across the 
ravine of a quarter of a mile, the cars slacken their speed 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 373 

as they enter the narrow rock-cut at the foot of the next 
plane. While looking upon the chiseled precipice to find 
some egress to this apparent cavern, the buzz of the pulley 
comes from the plane, and through the granite passage, 
deep and jaw-like, you are drawn to a height where the 
glance of the surrounding woods is interrupted by the 
sudden manner in which you are drawn into the very top 
of engine-house No. 4. 

The Lybian desert, in the desolation of its sands, offers 
more to admire than the scenery along the level from No. 
4 to No. 5. Groups of rock, solitary in dignity and gray 
with antiquity, are seen upon every side ; trees grow 
dwarfed from their accidental foothold ; and only here 
and there a tuft of wild grass holds its unfriendly place. 
The babbling of a brook at the foot of No. 5, alone falls 
pleasantly upon the ear. As the cars roll up the plane, 
the central portion of the valley is brought before the eye 
on a scale of i-efreshing magnificence. The features of 
the scenery become broader and more picturesque. The 
Moosic range, marking either side of the valley, so robed 
with forest to its very summit as to present two vast 
waves of silent tree-top, encircle the ancient home and 
stronghold of Capoose. As you look down into this am- 
phitheater, crowded with commercial and village life, 
catching a glimpse of the river giving a richer shade to a 
meadow where the war-song eclioed less than a century 
ago, evidences of thrift everywhere gi-eet and gladden the 
eye. 

At No. 6, upon the northern bank of the Roaring 
Brook, are located the most eastern mines of this com- 
pany, being those which are situated the nearest to New 
York City. These consist of a series of coal deposits, 
varied in purity, thickness, and value, but all profitably 
worked. The largest vein of coal mined here is full eight 
feet thick, and is the highest coal mined on the hill north- 
west of plane No. 6. 

Upon the opposite range of the Moosic Mount lin in 



374 HI8T()RY OF THE 

the vicinity of Leggett's Gap, this same stratum of coal 
is worked by other companies. Each acre of coal thus 
mined from this single vein yields about 10,000 tons of 
good merchantable coal. 

The Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad, 
crosses that of the Pennsylvania at No. 6, giving some 
interest to the most flinty rocks and soil in the world. 
No. 6 is a colony by itself. It is one of those humanized 
points destitute of every natural feature to render it attrac- 
tive. 

On either side of the ravine opening for the passage of 
Roaring Brook, the sloping hill, bound by rock, is cov- 
ered with shanties sending forth a brogue not to be mis- 
taken ; a few respectable houses stand in the background ; 
the offices, store-house, workshops, and the large stone 
car and machine shops of the company are located on the 
northern bank of the bi-ook. Some sixty years ago a saw- 
mill erected in this piny declivity by Stephen Tripp, who 
afterward added a small grist-mill by its side, was tlie 
only mark upon the spot until the explorations and sui- 
vey of this company. This jungle, darkened by laurels 
blending their evergreen with the taller undergmwth, 
was more formidable from the fact that during the earlier 
settlement of Dunmore it was the constant retreat of 
wolves. 

Over this savage nook, industry and capital have 
achieved their triumphs and brought into use a spot 
nature cast in a careless mood. At the head of No . 6 
stand the great coal screens for preparing the flner quality 
of coal, operated by steam-power. 

Up the slope of the Moosic, plane after plane, you 
ascend along the obliterated Indian path and Connecticut 
road, enjoying so wide a prospect of almost the entire val- 
ley from Pittston to Carbondale, that for a moment you 
forget that in the crowded streets elsewhere are seen so 
many bodies wanting souls. Dunmore, Scranton, Hyde 
Park, Providence, Olyphant, Peckville, Green Ridge, 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 375 

and Dickson appear in the foreground, while the Moosic, 
here and tliere serrated for a brook, swings out its great 
arms in democratic welcome to the genius of the artificer, 
first shearing the forest, then pros2)ering and perfecting 
the industrial interest everywhere animating the valley. 
The long lines of pasturage spotted with the herd, the 
elongated, red-necked chimneys distinguishing the coal 
works multiplied almost without number in their varied 
plots, give to these domains a picturesqueness and width 
seen nowhere to such an advantage in a clear day as on 
the summit of Cobb Mountain, two thousand feet above 
the tide. 

Diving through the tunnel, the train emerges upon the 
" barrens," where, in spite of every disadvantage of cold, 
high soil, are seen a few farms of singular productive- 
ness. The intervening country from the tunnel to Hawley, 
partakes of the hilly aspect of northern Pennsylvania, 
diversified by cross-roads, clearings, farm-houses, and 
streams. Here and there a loose-tongued rivulet blends 
its airs with the revolving car- wheel humming along some 
sliady glen, and farther along, tlie narrow cut, like the sea 
of old, opens for a friendly passage. Down an easy grade, 
amidst tall, old beechen forests half hewn away for clear- 
ings and homes of the frugal farmers, the cars roll at a 
speed of twelve miles an hour over a distance of some 
thirty miles from the tunnel, when, turning sharply 
around the base of a steep hill on the left, the cars land 
into the village of Hawley, a vigorous settlement, existing 
and sustaining itself principally by the industrial manip- 
ulations of this company, 

A little distance below the village, the Wallenpaupack, 
after leaping 150 feet over the terraced precipice, unites 
with the Lackawaxen, a swift, navigable stream in a 
freshet, down whose waters coal was originally taken 
from the Lackawanna Valley to the Delaware in arks. 

It is fourteen miles to Lackawaxen upon the Delaware, 
where, in 1779, a bloody engagement took place between 



376 HISTORY OF THE 

John Brant, the famous chief of the Six Nations, and 
some four hundred Orange county militia. 

The Tories and Indians had burned the town of Minisinl\, 
ten miles west of Goshen, scalping and torturing those 
who could not escape from the tomahawk by flight. 
Being themselves pursued by some raw militia, hastily 
gatliered Irom the neighborhood for the purpose, they 
retreated to the mouth of the Lackawaxen. Here Brant 
witli his followers formed an ambuscade. The whites, 
burning to avenge the invaders of their firesides, incau- 
tiously rushed on after the fleeing savages, ignorant or 
forgetting the wily character of their foe. As the troops 
were rising over a hill covered with trees, and had become 
completely surrounded in the fatal ring, hundreds of sav- 
ages poured in upon them sacli a merciless flre, accom- 
panied with the fearful war-whoop, that they were at once 
thrown into terrible confusion. Every savage was sta- 
tioned behind the trunk of some tree or rock which 
shielded him from the bullets of the militia. For half an 
hour the unequal conflict raged with increasing fury, the 
blaze of the guns flashing through the gloom of the day, 
as feebler and faster fell the little band. At length, when 
half of their number were either slain or so shattered by 
the bullets as to be mere marks for the sharp-shooters, the 
remainder threw away tlieir guns and fled ; but so closely 
were they in turn pursued by the exultant enemy that only 
tliirty out of the entire body escaped to tell the sad story of 
defeat. Many of these reached tlieir homes with fractured 
bones and fatal wounds. The remains of those who had 
fallen at this time were gathered in 1822, and deposited 
in a suitable place and manner by the citizens of Goshen. 

The New York and Erie Railroad have sent up a branch 
road from a point near this battle-ground to Hawley, thus 
giving to the Pennsylvania Coal Company an unfrozen 
avenue to the sea-board, besides dispensing in a great 
degree with water facilities offered and enjoyed until the 
completion of this branch in 1863. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 377 

From 1850 to 1866, 9,308,8;)6 tons of coal was brouglit 
from the mines to Hawley, being an average of 581,775 
tons per year.^ 

While a great part of the coal carried to Hawley ac- 
knowledges the jurisdiction of this branch road, a limited 
portion is unloaded into boats upon the Delaware and 
Hudson Canal. 

Once emptied, the cars return to the valley upon a 
track called the liglit track, where the light or empty 
cars are self-gravitated down a heavier grade to the 
coal-mines. Seated in the " Pioneer," a rude passenger 
concern, losing some of the repelling character of the 
coal car, in its plain, pine seats and arched I'oof, you rise 
up the plane from the Lackawaxen Creek a considerable 
distance before entering a series of ridges of scrub-oak 
land, barren both of interest and value until made other- 
wise by the fortunes of this company. Leaving Palmyra 
township, this natural barrenness disappears in a great 
measure as you enter the richer uplands of Salem, where 
an occasional farm is observed of great fertility, in spite 
of the accompanying houses, barns, and fences defying 
every attribute of Heaven's tirst law. About one mile 
from the road, amidst the quiet hills of Wayne County, 
nestles the village of Hollisterville. It lies on a ))ranch of 
the Wallenpaupack, seven miles from Cobb Pond, on the 



' Report of Coal tran.sported over the Pennsylvania Coal Company's Railroad 
for week and for year ending Deeember 31, 1868, and for corresponding period 
last year: — 

By Rail, week ending December 31 12,786 03 

" Previously 912,063 10 

924,8-19 13 

By Canal, week ending December 26 Closed. 

" Previously 29,004 19 

29,004 10 

Total by Canal and Rail, 1868 953,854 12 

" To same dale, 1867 861,729 15 

Increase 92,124 17 

JNO. B. SMITH, Superintendent. 



378 HISTORY OF THE 

mountain, and ten miles above the ancient ''Lackawa" 
settlement. Amasa Hollistee, with his sons, Alpheus, 
Alanson, and Wesley, emigrated from Hartford, Connec- 
ticut, to tills place in 1814, when the hunter and the- 
trapper only were familiar with the forest. Many of the- 
social comforts of the village, and much of the rigid 
morality of New England character can be traced to these 
pioneers. Up No. 21 you rise, and then roll toward the 
valley. The deepest and greatest gap eastward from the 
Lackawanna is Cobb's, through which flows the Roaring 
Brook. This shallow brook, from some cause, appears 
to have lost much of its ancient size, as it breaks through 
the picturesque gorge with shrunken volume to find its 
waj into the Lackawanna at Scranton. 

This gap in the mountain, deriving its name from Asa 
Cobb, who settled in the vicinity in 1784, lies three miles 
east of Scranton. It really offers to geologist or the casual 
inquirer much to interest. This mountain rent, unable 
longer to defy the triumphs of science, seems to have 
been furrowed out by the same agency which drew across 
the Alleghany the transverse lines diversifying the entire 
range. Like the mountain at the Delaware Water Grap, it 
bears evidence of having once been the margin of one 
of the lakes submerging the country at a period anterior 
to written or traditional history. Emerging from beech 
and maple woodlands, you catch a glimpse of a long, 
colossal ledge, bending in graceful semicircle, rising ver- 
tically from the Roaring Brook some three hundred feet 
or more. Its face, majestic in its wildness, as it first 
greets the eye, reminds one of the palisades along the 
Hudson. As it is approached upon the cars, the flank of 
the mountain defies further progress in that direction, 
when the road, with a corresponding bend to the left, 
winds the train from apparent danger, moving down the 
granite bank of the brook deeper and deeper into the 
gorge, enhanced in interest by woods and waterfall. The 
hemlock assumes the mastery of the forest along the 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 370 

brook, whose waters wliiten as tliey ]iour over x>recipk'e 
after precipice into pools below, which but few years 
since were so alive with trout, that fisiiina- half-an-hour 
with a single pole and line supplied the wants of a 
family for a day with this delicious fish. In the nar- 
rowest part of the gap, the cars run on a mere shelf, cut 
from the rock a lumdred feet from the bed of the stream, 
while the mountain, wrapped in evergreens, rises abruptly 
from the track many hundred feet. 

Greenville, a fossilized station on the Delaware, Lacka- 
wanna, and AVestern Railroad, and once the terminus 
of the Lackawanna Railroad, lies on a slope opposite 
this point. 

The great pyloric orifice of Cobb's Gap, once offering 
uncertain passage to the Indian's craft, illustrates the 
achievement of art over great natural obstacles. Roaring- 
Brook, Drinker's turnpike, now used as a township road, 
the Pennsylvania and the Delaware, Lackawanna, and 
^Vestern Railroad, find ample place under the shadow of 
its walls. 

A ride of an hour, far up from the bottom of the valley 
through a forest trimmed of its choicest timber by the 
lumbermen and shingle-makers, brings the traveler again 
to Pittston, renovated in spirits and vigor, and instructed 
in the manner of diffusing anthracite coal throughout 
the country. 

DELAWARE, LACKAWANNA, AND WESTERN RAILKOAD. 

Historical Summary of the Susquehanna and Delaioare Canal 
and Railroad Company [Drinker'' s Railroad) — The Leggett^s 
Gap Railroad — The Delaware and Cobb^s Gap Railroad 
Company — All merged into the Delaware, Lackawanna, and 
Western Railroad. 

Imperfect as was the knowledge of the value of coal 
forty years ago, large bodies of it being discovered here and 
there in the valley, mostly upon or near the surface, led 



380 IIISTOKY OF THE 

the late Henry W. Drinker to comprehend and agitate a 
plan of connecting the Susquehanna River at Pittston with 
the Delaware at the Water Gap, by means of a railroad 
running up the Lackawanna to the mouth of Roaring 
Brook, thence U]) that stream to the placid waters of Lake 
Henry, crossing the headsprings of the Lehigh upon the 
marshy table-land forming the dividing ridge between the 
Susquehanna and Delaware, and down the Pocono and 
the rapid Alanomink to the Water Gap, with a view of 
reaching a market. 

This was in 1819. The contemplated route, marked 
by the hatchet over mountain and ravine profound in the 
depth of their solitude, had no instrumental survey until 
eleven years afterward, but an examination of the country, 
with which no woodman was more familiar than Drinker, 
satisfied him that tlie intersecting line of communication 
was not only feasible, but that its practical interpretation 
would utilize the intervening section, and give action and 
impulse to many an idle ax. In April, 1826, he easily 
obtained an act of incorporation of the " Susquehanna 
and Delaware Canal and Railroad Company." The char- 
ter implied either a railroad operated up the planes by 
water, or a canal a portion of the way. The " head- waters 
of the river Lehigh and its tributary stream," were pro- 
hibited from being used for feeding the canal, as it might 
"injure the navigation of said river, from Mauch Chunk 
to Easton." By reference to the original report and sur- 
vey of this road, it appears that horses were contemplated 
as the motive power between the planes, that toll-houses 
were to be established along the line, and collectors 
appointed, and that the drivers or conductors of "such 
wagon, carriage, or conveyance, boat or raft, were to give 
the collectors notice of their approach to said toll-houses 
by blowing a trumpet or liorn." 

Henry W. Drinker, W^illiam Henry, David Scott, Jacob 
D. and Daniel Stroud, James N. Porter, A. E. Brown, S. 
Stokes, and John Coolbaugh, were the commissioners. 



LACKAWANA VALLKY. 381 

Among thefeAV persons in Pennsylvania willing to wel- 
come and recognize th(^ practicability of a railroad route 
in spite of the wide-spread distrust menacing it in 1830, 
stood prominently a gentleman, by the aid of whom, the 
Indian Capoose region of Slocum Holloto changed the 
ruggedness of its aspect — William Henry. In fact, Messrs. 
Henry and Drinker were two of the most indefatigable 
and energetic members of the board. 

In 1830, a subscription of a few hundred dollars was 
obtained from the commissioners ; in May, 1831, Mr. 
Henry, in accordance with the wishes of the board, 
engaged Major Ephraim Beach, C. E., to run a prelimi- 
nary line of survey over the intervening country. 

By reference to the old report of Major Beach, it will 
be seen that the present line of the southern division of 
the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad is, in 
the main, much the same as that run by liini at tliis time. 
Seventy miles in length the road was to be made, at a 
total estimated cost of $624,720. Three liundred and 
thirty-six wagons (cars), capable of carrying over the 
road 240,000 tons of coal per year, were to be emploj^ed. 

Coal at this time was worth $9 per ton in New York, 
Avhile coal lands in the valley could be bought at prices 
varying from $10 to $20 per acre. 

It was not supposed by the commissioners that the coal 
tiade alone could make this road one so profitable, but it 
was originally their object to connect the two at these 
points, so as to participate in the trade upon the Susque- 
hanna. For the return business it was thought that 
"iron in bars, pig, and castings, would be sent from the 
borders of the Delaware in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, 
and that limestone in great quantities would be trans- 
ported from the same district and burned in the coal 
region, where fuel would be abundant and cheap." ^ 

Simultaneously with this survey was the route of the 

' Commissioners' Report of the Route, 18.".2. 



iJ82 HISTORY OF THE 

Lackawaimock and Susquehanna, or Mereditli Railroad, 
leading from the mouth of Leggett's Creek in Providejice 
up to that graceful loop in the Susquehanna, called Great 
Bend, forty-seven and a half miles away, undertaken and 
surveyed by the late James Seymour, four years after the 
granting of its charter. 

Near the small village of Providence these two roads, 
neither of which contemplated the use of locomotives in 
their reliance upon gravity and seven inclined planes, 
were to form a junction, and expected to breathe life and 
unity into the iron pathway that was to grope its way 
out of a valley having scarcely a name away from its 
immediate border. Neither road proposed to carry pas- 
sengers. 

The report of the commissioners, presenting the subject 
in its most attractive light, failed to excite the attention it 
deserved. Men reputed as reliable looked upon the 
scheme as unworthy of serious notice. Those who had 
achieved an indifferent livelihood by the shot-gun or the 
plow, saw no propriety in favoring a plan whose fullill- 
ment promised no protection to game or greater product 
to the field. 

The few who felt that its success would interweave its 
advantages into every condition of life, were not dis- 
mayed. 

In the spring of 1832, a sufficient amount of stock hav- 
ing been subscribed, the company was organized : Drinker 
fleeted president, John Jordon, Jr., secretary, and Henry, 
treasurer. At a subsequent meeting of the stockhold- 
ers, the president and treasurer were constituted a 
financial committee to raise means to make the road, by 
selling stock, issuing bonds, or by hypothecating the 
road, (fee. The engineer's map, the commissioners' re- 
port, and newspaper articles were widely diffused, to 
announce the material benefits to result by the comple- 
tion and acquisition of this new thoroughfare. 

The Lackawauua Valley, set in its green wild ridges, 



LACKAWANNA VAr.LKV. 383 

known in New York City only by the Delaware and 
Hudson Canal Company, then in the fourth year of its 
existence, confounded often witli the Laekawaxen region 
lying upon the other side of the Moosic Mountain, neither 
Drinker's nor Meredith's charter was received with favor 
or attention. 

The advantages of railroads were neither understood 
nor encouraged by the inhabitants of the valley in 1832, 
because the slow ox- team or jaded saddle-horse thus far 
had kept pace with its development. To render the 
scheme, however, more comprehensive and general in its 
character, and make more certain the building of the 
Drinker railroad, a continuous route was explored for a 
gravity railroad, "from a point in Cobb's Grap, where 
an intersection or connection can be conveniently formed 
with the Susquehanna and Delaware Railroad, in Luzerne 
County," up through Leggett's Gap, and running in a 
northwesterly direction to the State of New York. 

This was the Leggett's G-ap Railroad, an inclined plane 
road which, when completed, was expected to receive the 
trade along the fertile plains of the Susquehanna, Che- 
nango, and the Chemung, now enjoyed so profitably by the 
New York and Erie Railroad. 

H. W. Drinker, Elislia S. Potter, Thomas Smith, Dr. 
Andrew Bedford, and Nathaniel Cottrill — the last two of 
whom are now living — were among the original commis- 
sioners. 

Public meetings were now called by the friends of the 
Drinker road, at the Old Exchange in Wall Street, New 
York, to obtain subscriptions to the stock of the com- 
pany, and, while many persons acknowledged the enter- 
prise to be a matter of more than common interest to the 
country generally, as it promised when completed, to fur- 
nish a supply of coal from the hills of Luzerne County, a 
county where thousands of millions of tons of the best 
anthracite coal could be mined from a region of more than 
thirt^'-thn'e miles in length, and averaging more than two 



384 HisroRY OF the 

miles in width, underlaid with coal probably averaging 
fifty feet in thickness, and besides this, unlike most other 
mining portions of the world, it abounded in agricultural 
fertility. 

While these facts where generally conceded, they pro- 
duced no other effect, than bringing from capitalists the 
favorable opinion that final triumph probably awaited 
their hopes. In Morristown, Newton, Belvidere, Newark, 
and other places in New Jersey ; at Easton, Stroudsburg, 
Dunmore, Providence, and Kingston, in Pennsylvania, 
meetings were called to draw the attention of the public 
mind and acquire the requisite means to open this high- 
way through the wilderness, where the wolf, crouched in 
the swamp, bestowed with his gray eye as friendly a 
glance upon the project as many capitalists were inclined 
to give it. Every sanguine hope, every flattering promise 
made in a spirit of apparent earnestness languished and 
died like the leaves of autumn. 

At length, engagements were made Avith New York 
capitalists to carry the matter forward to a favorable ter- 
mination, provided that Drinker and his friends would 
obtain a charter for a continuous line of giavity railroad 
up the Susquehanna, from Pittston to the New York State 
line. In 183B, a perpetual charter for such a road was 
obtained by their agency, and the first installment of five 
dollars was paid, according to the act of Assembly. In 
itself it was considered, that in connection with other 
roads, at or near the Delaware Water Gap to New York 
City, it would be Avith its terminus at Jersey City east- 
wardly, and the State line near Athens, in Pennsylvania, 
westward, the shortest and the best line the natural 
avenues indicated from New York west. It was shown by 
the ofiicial report of a survey made in 1827, by John Ben- 
nett, of Kingston, Pennsylvania, that the distance from 
the mouth of the Lackawanna of eighty- six miles had but 
two hundred and fourteen feet fall, or about two and a 
half feet per mile, the acclivity for the whole distance 



LACKAWANNA VALLEV. 385 

being in general nearly equal, and beyond this to the 
city of Elmira at about the same grade. 

The vast project of the New York and Erie Railroad 
was agitating southern New York at this time. Of the 
seven commissioners, John B. Jervis, Horatio Allen, 
Jared Wilson, and William Dewy urged the adoption of 
the present route, while F. Whittlesey, Orville W. 
Childs, and Job Pierson reported adversely to it. 

The New York gentlemen interested in Drinker's route, 
having full faith in the realization of an idea promising 
control of a line reaching the same point on the New York 
and Erie Railroad (as laid down by Judge Wright, civil 
engineer, but on which nothing more had yet been done), 
at a distance of eighty-one miles short of this line, while 
running through both the anthracite and bituminous coal 
districts upon easier grades, were greatly encouraged to 
hope for success; several sections in the "Susquehanna 
Railroad" law were, by supplements, so amended by 
legislative enactments as to fulfill upon that point every 
expectation. 

In October, 1835, the services of Doctor George Green, 
of Belvidere, who was a friend of this improvement, and 
who originated the "Belvidere Delaware Railroad," were 
procured. William Henry's note, indorsed by Henry W. 
Drinker, accepted and indorsed by the cashier of the 
Elizabeth Bank as ."good," was taken by the doctor to 
the Wyoming Bank at Wilkes Barre as a deposit and 
payment, in compliance with the law called the "Sus- 
quehanna Railroad" act of Assembly of 1833. 

In consequence of the commercial embarrassments alien- 
ating credit and confidence throughout the entire country 
in 1835-6, the New York party, impoverished and appalled 
by the shock, could give no further thought to the road. 
Other parties being prostrated by insolvency or death, the 
positive spirit, inaugurating the company, carried with it 
thus far a success decidedly negative and skeptical. 

Ten years had thus escaped, and not a single tie nor rail 



3S6 HISTORY OF THE 

had sliod the road : here and tliere a few limbs clipped 
from the forest- tree to aid the surveyor, and a few rods 
graded for the flat iron bar, bore evidence of the hope of 
the directors. 

In the summer of 1836, there was traveling in the 
Ignited States an English nobleman named Sir Charles 
Augustus Murray, who, learning of the important char- 
acter of this proposed road from one of his friends, became 
interested in its success. A correspondence ensued, which 
led to a meeting of the friends of the project, at Easton, 
June 18, 1836 ; Mr. Drinker and. Mr. Henry on the part of 
the I'ailroad company, and Mr. Armstrong of New York, 
Mr. C. A. Murray, and Wm. F. Clem son of New Jersey, 
wrote out articles of association ; the railroad committee 
fully authorized Mr. Mui'ray to raise, as he proposed to 
do, 100,000 pounds sterling in England, conditional that 
the company should i-aise the means to make a beginning 
of the work. Mr. Henry accompanied him to New York, 
and furnished him with the power of attorney, under seal 
expressly made for the purpose, and on the eighth of 
August, 1836, Mr. Murray sailed for Europe. Mr. Henry 
at once met and made arrangements with the Morris Canal 
Board of Directors to raise $150,000 on stock subscriptions 
to commence the road, but before these arrangements had 
matured, discouraging news came from England through 
Mr. Murray, who informed the company that the pros- 
trated monetary atfiiirs of Europe rendered any assistance 
by him out of the question. 

To this meeting, which lasted three days, in the village 
of Easton, can be traced the starting of the iron-works in 
Slocum Hollow, whose varied and wide-spread prosjierity 
have animated the entire domain of the Lackawanna.^ 

The first iron- works in Scranton after those of Slocums', 
were erected in 1840. In the summer of 1842, after the 
artificers gathered around the Scranton furnaces had 

' See nistorv of Scr&nton. 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 387 

lecarned to smelt iron Avitli the lustrous anthracite, the 
directors of the railroad held only annual meetings. 
Drinker and Henry had each expended nearly their en- 
tire resources to fructify a project whose magnitude found 
no i)lace or conception in the public mind ; this being 
done in vain, postponed further sacrifices and efforts to 
stretch the iron fiber from river to river, until greater 
wants from the sea-board came up to the coal heaps, and 
established mutual confidence instead of general distrust. 

The simple acquisition of Slocum Hollow, in 1840, by a 
New Jersey company, had but little interest outside of 
parties concerned in the purchase AVho were taxed for 
the rough pasture-land cleared on Roaring Brook, none 
cared to inquire. Its purchase, however, originally sug- 
gested by Mr. Henry with especial reference to the fur- 
therance of Drinker's road, favored that result sooner 
than was anticipated. With the concentration and expan- 
sion of capital here at this time, a business was generated 
which called for a better communication with the sea- 
l)oard tlian the ox-team or the sluggish waters of a cana] 
frozen up at least six months of every year. 

Col. Scranton, in the simplicity of whose character the 
whole country acquiesced and felt proud, representing 
the interests of the iron-makers in Scranton, yet willing to 
give power to a measure full of public good, conceived the 
project, in 1847, of opening communication from the iron- 
works northward to the lakes by a locomotlce instead of 
a gramty road run by plane, stationary engine, and level, 
as Drinkers, Meredith's, and the Leggett charters all con- 
templated. The charter of the last-named road, kept alive 
by the intiuence of Dr. Andrew Bedford. Tliomas Smith, 
Nathaniel Cottrill, and other spirited gentlemen, was pur- 
chased by the " Scranton Comi)aiiy" in 1849, by the sug- 
gestion of Colonel Scranton. A survey was made the 
same j^ear ; the road was comuK'nced in 1850. 

For the purpose of giving favor and strength to a proj- 
ect unable to m-ake its way to a practical solution withou* 



388 HISTORY OF THE 

capital from abroad, a road was chartered in April, 1849, 
to run from the Delaware Water Gap to some point on the 
Lackawanna near Cobb's Gap, called ''The Delaware and 
Cobb's Gap Eailroad Company." The commissioners, 
Moses W. Coolbaugh, S. W. Schoomaker, Thos. Grattan. 
H. M. Lebar, A. Overtield, I. Place, Benj. V. Rush, 
Alpheus Ilollister, Samuel Taylor, F. Starburd, Jas. H. 
Stroud, R. Bingham, and W. Nyce, held their hrst meet- 
ing at Stroudsburg, December 26, 1850, choosing Col. Geo. 
W. Scranton president. 

The northern division of "The Lackawanna and West- 
ern Railroad Company," carried by genius and engineer- 
ing skill for sixty miles over the rough uplands distin- 
guishing the country it traverses from Scranton to Great 
Bend, was opened for business in October, 1851, thus ena- 
bling the inhabitants of the valley to reach New York by 
a single diiy's ride instead of two, as before. 

Ti-avel and traffic, hitherto finding its way from the 
basins of Wyoming and the Lackawanna to Middletown 
or Narrowsburg by stage, and thence along the unfinished 
Erie, now diverged westward, via Great Bend, sixty miles 
away, before apparently beginning a journey eastward to 
New York. This unphilosophical and wasteful manner 
of groping among the hills in the wrong direction before 
starting for New York, directed the intelligence of the 
mass toward the purpose of Col. Scranton, of planing a 
continuous roadway direct to New York, via the cele- 
brated Delaware Water Gap. 

The original charter of Drinker's railroad was pur- 
chased of him in 1853, by the railroad company, for 
$1,000. Immediately after this, a joint application was 
made by the "Delaware and Cobb's Gap Railroad Com- 
pany," and the "Lackawanna and Western Railioad 
Company," for an act of the Legislature for their consoli- 
dation, which was granted March 11, 1853, and the union 
consummated under the present name of "The Delawai'e, 
Lackawanna, and Western Railroad Company." 



LACKAWANNA VAI.LKY. 



389 



Of this cousolidated road, the late George W. Scranton 
was unanimously elected President: how well he filled 




this position until compelled to exchaiiiic it for the inva- 
lid's shelf, let the movement of the iron pathway across 



390 UlbTOKY OF THE 

a valley wlncli would be comparatively idle to-day with- 
out it— let the mutually satisfactory adjustment of every 
contiicting interest arising in the progress of this great 
road — let the spirit of his administration, characterized 
by qualities both sterling and comprehensive — more than 
this, let the simple fact tliat he, inspiring capitalists with 
the same confidence he himself liad acquired and cher- 
ished, was able to draw forth the wherewithal to complete 
a road deriving its origin and vigor from him, bear ample 
and praiseworthy testimony. 

The vast business of this road, which in the year of 
1868 carried 1,728,785.07 tons of anthracite, requires one 
hundred locomotives, about five thousand coal-cars, and 
gives emploj^ment to over 5,000 men. Its total disburse- 
ments at Scranton alone, through H. A. Plielps, the cour- 
teous paymaster of the road, amounted, during the last 
year, to over $4,000,000, while a considerable sum diffused 
itself through the treasury department in New York. 

Tlie same efficiency and ability with which Hon. John 
Brisbin acquired popularity as the president of the great 
primitive locomotive railroad in the Lackawanna Valley, 
from 1856 to 1867, has been continued and even augment«^d 
by Samuel Sloan, Esq., its present vigilant president, and 
formerly the presiding officer of the Hudson Rivei- Rail- 
road, whose admirable management of the interests of the 
Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad, has placed 
it upon a basis reliable and remunerative, and given it a 
character, even beyond the States it traverses, enjoyed by 
few, if any, railroads in the country. 

The lease of the Morris and Essex road by the Dela- 
ware, Lackawanna, and Western, for an almost indefinite 
term of years, establishes more intimate relations between 
the Lackawanna Valley and the sea-board than ever 
enjoyed before, and marks an era in the history of coal 
transportation, second only in importance to the concep- 
tion of the original gravity raih'oad stretched like a rain- 
bow over the Moosic in 1826 8 by Wurts brothers. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 393 

Hitherto, the former road, vigorous with local traffic, 
strove only to compete with a diverse railway for doubt- 
ful dividends, w^ithout a Avish to advance or retard the 
welfare of the valley. By a stroke of policy seldom 
surpassed in the grandeur of its results, all this was 
changed in January, 1869, by the practical foresight of 
President Sloan and his associates. The consolidation of 
these two roads gives a future interest to the Delaware, 
Lackawanna, and Western road far beyond the apprecia- 
tion of the hour. It abbreviates distance, offers a con- 
tinuous and controllable rail from tlie mines to New 
York, increases the value and tonnage of the road almost 
fourfold, while the travel over it for all time to come 
will make one steady, living stream of various lineage 
and faith, steady, remunerating, and tlms commemorate 
the wisdom of the men who inaugurated the movement. 
The superintendency of the Morris and Essex division of 
the line has fallen into the experienced hands of Hon. 
John Brisbin. 

THE LACKAW^ANNA AND BLOOMSBUKG KAILKOAD. 

After the locomotive railroad from the Lackawanna 
Valley had become a fixed fact by the genial efforts of 
those to whom its failure or its success had been intrusted, 
other roads began to spring into a charter being. Among 
such was the Lackawanna and Bloomsburg Railroad. An 
act incorporating this company was passed in April, 1852, 
but not until some valuable and essential amendments were 
obtained for the charter the next year, by the able efforts 
of one of the members of the Pennsylvania Legislature — 
Hon. A. B. Dunning — did it possess any available vitality. 
This road, running from Scranton to Northumberland, is 
eighty miles in length, passing through the historic valley 
of Wyoming, where the poet Campbell drew, in his Ger- 
trude, such pictures of the beautiful and wild. It also 
passes along the Susquehanna, over a portion of the old 



394 HISTORY OF THE 

battle-ground, wliere, in 1778, a small band of settlers 
marched forth from Forty Fort, in the afternoon, to fight 
the spoilers of their firesides, and where, after the battle, 
the long strings of scalps dripping from the Indian belts, 
and the hatchets reddened with the slain, told how sore 
had been the rout, and how terrible the massacre tliat fol- 
lowed. The dweller in wigwams has bid a long farewell 
to a region so full of song and legend, and where can be 
found the one to-day who, as he looks over the old plan- 
tation of the Indian Nations, once holding their great 
council fires here, upon the edge of the delightful river, 
surrounded by forest and inclosing mountain, can won- 
der that they fought as fights the wild man with war- 
club and tomahawk, to regain the ancient plains of their 
fathers 'i 

Wyoming Valley, taken as a whole, compensates in the 
highest degree for the trouble of visiting it. The grand 
beauty of the old Susquehanna and the sparkling current 
of its blue waters nowhere along its entire distance aj)- 
pears to better advantage than does it here. Along the 
Po or the Rhine, there loom up the gray walls of some 
castle dismantled and stained with the blood of feudal 
conflict ; here on the broad acres of Wyoming turned into- 
culture, humanity wears a smile nowhere more sweet or 
lovely. 

The tourist who wishes to visit this truly interesting val- 
ley, can step into the cars of the Lehigh and Susquehanna, 
or the Lackawanna and Bloomsburg Railroad Company, at 
Scranton, and in twenty minutes look ''On Susquehanna's 
side, fair Wyoming !" Across the river, half a mile from 
Campbell's Ledge, near the head of the valley, is seen the 
battle-ground. About three miles below Pittstoii, left of 
the village of Wyoming, rises from the plain a naked 
monument — an obelisk of gray masonry sixty-two and a 
half feet high, which commemorates the disastrous after- 
noon of the third of July, 1778. Near this point reposes 
tlip bloody rock around which, on the evening of that ill- 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 395 

fated day, was formed tlie fatal ring of savages, where tlie 
Indian queen of the Senecas, with death-mall and battle- 
ax. dashed out the brains of the un insisting captives. The 
diihris of Forty Fort, tlie first fort built on tlie north side 
of the Susquehanna by the Connecticut emigrants, in 1769, 
is found a short distance down the jiver from tliis rock. 

The Lackawanna and Bloomsburg Railroad, while it is 
a valuable auxiliary to the Delawar(% LackaAvanna, and 
Western Railroad, in whose interests it is opei-ated, en- 
joyed all the advantages of travel between central Penn- 
sylvania and the Lackawanna Valley until the Lehigh 
and Susquehanna and the Lehigh Valley railroads, bound- 
ing over the mountain with the celerity and speed of a 
deer, alienated a portion of the trade and travel. 

Having the advantage of collieries with an aggregate 
3^early capacity of a million tons of coal, threadin'j^ its way 
along the green belt uf the Susquehanna over rich beds 
of iron ore, worked in Danville by ingenious aitificers 
v,iio have adopted science as their patron, it will ever 
stand prominent among the railroads of the country. 

While the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Rail- 
road, with its greater length of thirty-three miles, carried 
187,583 passengers during the year 1867, the Lackawanna 
and Bloomsburg transported 269,564— an excess of 81,981 
persons. 

No railroad in the country of its length, lined with 
scenery always exhilarating, would better repay tlie visit 
of a few days in summer or autumn, than will this. It is, 
in fact, all picturesque, while portions of it are really 
magnificent. Thundering along the border of the river 
and the canal, at a rate of thirty miles an hour, a glimpse 
is now caught and then lost, of old gray mountain crags 
and glens, covered with forest just as it grew— of sleepy 
islands, dreaming in the half-pausing stream — of long, 
narrow meadows, stretched along with sights of verdure 
and sounds of life, and now and then a light cascade, 
tuned by the late rains, comes leaping down rock after 



396 HISTORY OF THE 

rock, like a ribbon floating in the air ! How the waters 
whiten as they come through the tree-tops with silver 
shout from precipice to precipice in the bosom of some 
rock, cool and fair-lipped ! The scenery is especially 
grand at Nanticoke — the once wild camp-place of the Nan- 
ticokes— where Wyoming Valley terminates, and where 
the noble river, wrapped up in the majesty of mountains, 
glides along as languidly as when the red man in his nar- 
row craft shot over the ripple. 

Mr, James Archibald, life-long in his earnest devotion 
to the interests of the Lackawanna Valley, is president of 
the road. 

SKETCH OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE LEHIGH AND 
SUSQUEHANNA RAILEOAD. 

This road, running from Providence to Easton, a dis- 
tance of 120 miles, threads a section of country surpassed 
by no other in the State for the grandeur of its scenery or 
the interest of its history. 

When the Indian civilizers first began, to fraternize with 
the sachems of the Lehigh at Fort Allen or Gnadenhutten 
(now Weissport) in 1746, all knowledge of anthracite coal 
was so limited, that the word "coal" was noted upon 
but a single map within the Province of Pennsylvania. 
The casual discovery of coal, half a century later, near 
this settlement, gave fetal life to the Lehigh Coal and 
Navigation Company, and a prominence to the history 
of this region not otherwise enjoyed. 

At the confluence of the Ma-ha-noy (the loud, laughing 
stream of the Indian) with the Lehigh, this fort was 
located, eighteen miles above Bethlehem, forty miles by 
the warriors' trail from Teedyuscung's plantation at 
Wyoming. It was the flrst attempt of the whites to 
carry civilization into the provincial acquisitions of Penn 
above the Blue Mountain. Why a region so rough in its 
general exterior should have been chosen for a sheltering 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 397 

place, can be accounted for upon no other theory than 
that the gray rock liere bordering the Leliigh, took the 
place in memory of the Elbe in their fatherland emerging 
from the crags of the Alps. 

This place, often visited by sachem and chief, whom 
the missionaries first conciliated, then endeavored to 
Christianize, "numbered 500 souls in 1752."^ Braddock's 
defeat, two years later, opened the forest for the uplifted 
tomahawk. Some of the Six Nations, exchanging wam- 
pum and whiff's of the calumet with their Moravian 
brothers, danced the war-dance before Vaudreuil, Gover- 
nor of New France (New York State). " We will try the 
hatchet of our fathers on the English," said the chiefs at 
Niagara, " and see if it cuts well.'"' 

The obliteration of the village, with the death or expul- 
sion of its inmates, January 1, 1756, attested the trial of 
both fire-brand and hatchet. 

After a lump of coal found near Mauch Chunk, in 1791, 
oy Ginther, had been analyzed and pronounced as such 
by the savans of Philadelphia, the following persons, 
Messrs. Hillegas, Cist, Weiss, Henry, and others, associ- 
ated themselves together, without charter or corporation, 
as the "Lehigh Coal Mine Company," for the purpose 
of transporting coal to Philadelphia, in 1792. They pur- 
chased land, cut a narrow road for the passage of a 
wagon from the mine to the river, and sent a few bushels 
of anthracite coal to Philadelphia in canoes or "dug-outs." 
None could be sold ; little given away. Col, Weiss, the 
original owner of the land, spent an entire summer in 
diff'using huge saddle-bags of coal through the smith- 
shops of Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton, and other places. 
From motives of personal friendship, a few persons were 
induced to give it a trial, with very indifferent success. 

Under the sanction of legislative enactment, some 
$20,000 was expended to prepare the Lehigh for naviga 

' Miner's Wyoming, p. 41. * Vaudreuil to the Minister, July 13, 1157 



398 HISTORY OF THE 

tion. No more coal, however, Avas carried down tlie 
stream until 1805, when William Turnbull, by the aid of 
an ark, floated some 200 or 300 bushels to Philadelphia. 
As the coal extinguished rather than improved the fire, 
the great body of citizens refused to buy or make further 
attempt to burn it, or be imposed upon by the black 
stuff. 

Messrs. Rowland and Butland were the next to lease 
the mines, and fail. 

The success of Jesse Fell, of Wilkes Barre, in 1808, of 
burning coal in a common grate, led two of the representa- 
tive men of the day, Chailes Miner and Jacob Cist, to 
lease the Ginther mine in 1814, with a view of shipping 
coal to Philadelphia. 

On the 9th of August of this year, the first ark-load of 
coal started from Mauch Chunk. "The stream," writes 
Miner, "wild, full of rocks, and the imperfect channel 
crooked, in less than eighty rods from the place of start 
ing the ark struck on a ledge, and bioke a hole in her 
bow. The lads stripped themselves nearly naked, to stop 
the rush of water with their clotiies. At dusk they were 
at Easton, fifty miles." 

The impetaous character of the river, untamed by art, 
and the absence of any demand for coal, induced these 
pioneers to retire from the Manch Chunk coal-mines. 
"This effort of ours," says Charles Miner, "might be 
regarded as the acorn, from which has sprung the mighty 
oals: of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company." 

In 1817, three energetic gentlemen, Josiali White, 
George F. A. Hauto, and Erskine Hazard, profiting by 
each preceding failure, originated the plan of floating 
coal down the inky, turbulent current from Mauch Chunk 
to the Delaware by the aid of slackened water. 

From Mauch Chunk to Stoddartsville, not a single 
cabin rose in the wilderness ; the abandoned warrior's 
trail alone intervened. 

In 1818, the Legislature of Pennsylvania empowered 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 399 

these gentleirKMi as the "Leliigh Navigation Company," 
" to improve the navigation of the river Lehigh" by con- 
structing wing-dams and channel walls along the more 
rapid and shallow portion of the stream, so as to narrow 
and contract the current for practical purposes. In Octo- 
ber, 1818, *' The Lehigh Coal Company" built a road from 
the Lehigh to the old Ginther mine on Summit Hill. 

Arks of coal were carried down in the spring freshet ; 
in the summer months when water was low, bear-dams 
were constructed from tree-tops and stones, "in the 
neighborhood of Mauch Chunk, in which were placed 
sluice-gates of peculiar construction, invented for the'pur- 
pose by Josiah White, by means of which the water 
could be retained in the pool above until required for 
us(\ When the dam became full, and the water had run 
over it long enough for the river below the dam to acquire 
tile depth of the ordinary overflow of the river, the sluice- 
gatt^s were let down, and the boats which were lying in 
the x)Ools above, passed down with the artificial flood. "^ 
Some ]()() tons of coal thus found its way down the 
Lehigh in 1818. 

The partial success of a plan alike novel and unrelia- 
ble, led to a more systematic slack- water navigation from 
Mauch Chunk to Easton, forty-five miles. 

The people of Philadelphia, educated reluctantly in the 
use and art of anthracite, finding this avenue from the 
coal-mines inadequate to the demands of commerce, lent 
a hand to calm the swift watei'S of the Lehigh for coal 
traffic. The Legislature of the State, infiuenced by men 
able to bring greater political influence to bc^ar than this 
sterile region could then offer, granted to Messrs. White, 
Hauto, and Hazard, the privilege of improving the 
navigation of the Lehigh as far as Wiiite Haven ; reserv- 
ing, however, the right of compelling the company to 
make a continuous slack-watei- navigation to Stoddarts- 

' Henry's "Lobigli Valley." 



400 HISTORY OF THE 

ville, a sprightly lumbering village, fifteen miles farther 
up the stream. 

The Lehigh Coal and Lehigh Navigation Company were 
consolidated in the spring of 1820. During this year 365 
tons of coal, lowered down the Lehigh in arks by some 
fifty dams, found its way to a tardy market. A few years 
later, 400 acres of land was stripped of its stately pines 
annually for the coast ruction of the necessary arks : 
these were manipulated into building material in Phila- 
delphia, while the iron was returned to Mauch Chunk for 
repeated use. This destruction of wood, now seriously 
felt, and the waste of time in building boats for a single 
trip, subsequently led to a more practical method of 
navigation. 

The slack-water (canal) navigation was opened to 
Mauch Chunk simultaneously with the Delaware and 
Hudson Railroad, eastward from the Lackawanna Valley, 
in 1829, to White Haven, in 1835. 

As the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, already 
embarrassed by the expensive dams they had built, could 
see no benefit to accrue by the extension of their works 
to Stoddartsville, it asked to be released from this par- 
ticular part of the agreement, through the same body that 
had so ungraciously imposed it. Objections and remon- 
strances poured into the Legislature from Stoddartsville 
and from almost every township in the county of 
Luzerne. Andrew Beaumont, representing the expression 
and interests of Wyoming Valley, with a strength and 
ingenuity for which he was ever remarkable, interposed 
means to frustrate the wishes of the company. The matter 
was finally compromised ; the Navigation Company agree- 
ing to erect a single dam on the stream above Port Jen- 
kins, and carry channel walls and wing-dams from pool 
to pool for the passage of rafts and logs from Stoddarts- 
ville, and build a gravity railroad over the mountain from 
White Haven to Wilkes Barre, The Legislature now 
withdrew or repealed so much of the former act as 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 401 

required the completion of the slack-water navigation to 
Stoddartsville. 

The valley of Wyoming ramifying with competing 
railways, gained its first one by this scramble with a com- 
pany with which its relations have subsequently become 
pleasant and profitable. This railroad was begun in 1837. 

A stream, rapid and treacherous as the Lehigh, passing 
for miles through a mere fissure of vertical rock, bore 
restraint with deceitful demeanor. Danger concentrated 
in every dam. A sudden snow-thaw forced an infuriated 
volume down the Lehigh, January 8, 1839, at the expense 
of the company and their employees ; on the same day 
of the month in 1841, another thaw released the snow from 
the mountain and swelled the torrent with loss of life 
and property ; the freshet, however, of 1862, resistless 
and unparalleled in the extent of its ravages upon life 
and property, appalled and smothered with a single wave 
every lock-house and its inmates, every dam, boat, or 
bridge, attempting to interrupt its passage. About 300 
persons living along the river perished in that cold, dark, 
memorable night. 

The Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, with but 
little left but the bare stream exulting over its liberation, 
actuated by humane and practical impulses as well as 
the wishes of the Lehigh Valley inhabitants, who every- 
where opposed the reconstruction of the dams because of 
their danger, made the Lehigh a safer companion by con- 
structing along its berme bank, or the debris of the canal, 
a locomotive railroad. While the immense forest around 
White Haven, slashed into by the lumberman without 
regard to economy or foresight, annually assured the road 
considerable traffic, the gravity railway from Wilkes 
Barre, terminating here, could not fairly compete with 
other routes diverging to the sea-board from northern 
Pennsylvania.* Years of reconnoissance of the interpos- 

' Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad. — Report of coal shipped south, for 
week ending Dec. 31, 18G8:— 



402 HI8TOKY OF THE 

ing mountain enabled the engineers to descend with a 
locomotive into the plains of Wyoming triumphantly, as 
the Jewish ruler of old came down from the sacred mount. 
If there is grandeur in the bold outlines of precipice 
and forest in the coal-fields of Pennsylvania, then the 
scenery along the entire road is truly exhilarating, while 
the view in ascending or descending the slope between 
Penobscot and Wilkes Barre is singularly beautiful and 
unique. The broad expanse of Wyoming Valley, with 

Shipped from Wbbk. Total. 

Harvey Brothers. IS* 11 

Lances' Colliery 3,264 15 

New England Coal Co 1,129 02 

Morgan Mines 92 18 

Parish & Thomas 19,100 12 

New Jersey Coal Co 356 09 18,193 04 

Gaylord Mines 245 01 

Lehigh Luzerne Coal Co 220 01 5,010 03 

Leliigh & Susquehanna Coal Co 15 10 

Germania Coal Co 20,866 08 

Franklin Coal Co 243 18 

Wilkes Barre C. & L Co 4,772 01 335,544 17 

Union Coal Co 2,040 07 

Mineral Spring Coal Co 454 15 11,022 07 

H. B. HUlman & Son 103 19 2,768 14 

Bowkley, Price & Co 288 16 3,808 05 

Wyoming Coal & T. Co 286 14 4,375 16 

Henry CoUiery 356 02 9,490 08 

J. H. Swoyer 5,405 03 

Everhart Coal Co 482 06 3,406 17 

Morris & Essex Mut. Coal Co 78 19 

Shawnee Coal Co 219 14 20,297 05 

Delaware & Hudson Canal Co 11,447 06 

Pine Ridge Coal Co 325 05 12,898 04 

Consumers' Coal Co 5,272 18 

Albrighton, Roberts & Co 10,606 03 

Other shippers 197 18 12,469 03 

Total Wyoming Region .. 8,064 00 519,279 19 

Total Mauch Chunk 4, 1 18 04 49,086 1 5 

Total Hazleton 49 10 332,817 06 

Total Upper Lehigh 2,389 12 141,499 06 

Grand Total 14,021 06 1,042,683 06 

Corresponding week last year 6,280 06 485,501 00 

Increase :>.:541 00 557.182 05 



LACKAWANNA VALLKY. 403 

her dozen villages sleeping quietly in her bosom :— the 
Susquehanna making a low bow and bend around Camp- 
bell's Ledge at the head of the valley, dividing the rich 
bottom for twenty miles before it gathers in a measure of 
its beauty and retires from the eye at Nanticoke, and the 
green farms, dotted here and there with quaint home- 
steads telling their story of strife and skirmish in olden 
time, all make up a landscape rarely offered to the eye of 
the traveler. 

Steel rails, stretched over a great portion of the road, 
impart a degree of security that must popularize it as a 
great thoroughfare. In fact, the same far-seeing sagacity 
that this pioneer company carried into the Lehigh Val 
ley a quarter of a century ago, to secure and develop 
antliracite, has led them to make a railroad in such an 
excellent and thorougli manner as to be a marvel among 
American railroads, reflecting equal credit upon the engi- 
neers and managers who matured this great enterprise. 

John Leisenring, Esq., of Mauch Chunk, ably lilled the 
united position of superintendent and engineer of this road 
until the summer of 1868. John P. llsley, a gentleman 
who enjoyed high consideration as the superintendent of 
the Lackawanna and Bloomsburg for many years, suc- 
ceeds Mr. Leisenring in the superintendency of this road. 

HON. GEORGE W. SCK ANTON. 

Col. George W. Scranton was too universally known 
and beloved throughout the country to be overlooked 
in a work aiming to do justice to men who have gained 
glory by carrying reformation and development to the 
valley of which it treats. The following biographical 
sketch of Colonel Scranton, prepared especially for this 
volume, is from the able pen of Rev. Dr. George Peck :— 

Col. Scranton descended from John Scranton, who was 
cue of the colony who settled in New Haven in 1638. 
The Scranton family was distinguished in the French and 



404 HISTORY OF Till'; 

Revolutionary wars, some of them as privates and otiiers 
as commissioned officers. Col. Scranton was born in 
Madison, Ct,, May 11, 1811. At an early period in life, 
he exhibited extraordinary qualities both of intellect and 
heart. His opportunities for an education were embraced 
within the privileges of the common school and two years' 
training in "Lee's Academy." 

In 1828, he came to Belvidere, N. J., and the first em- 
ployment he obtained was that of a teamster, for which 
he received eight dollars per month. His great industry 
and general good conduct excited the attention of business 
men, and he was soon employed as a clerk in the store of 
Judge Kinney, where his great business tact and winning 
management not long after gained him the position of a 
partner in the concern. 

On the 21st of January, 1835, Mr. Scranton Avas married 
to Miss Jane Hiles, of Belvidere. After his marriage, he 
engaged in farming, in which business he continued until 
1839. At this time Mr. Scranton, in partnership with 
his brother Selden, purchased the lease and stock of 
Oxford Furnace, N. J,, and, contrary to the predictions 
and fears of their friends, they succeeded in the business, 
and maintained their credit through the season of embar- 
rassment to business which followed the terrible crash 
of 1837. 

In 1839, Mr. William Henry, being impressed with the 
advantages of the manufacture of iron in the Lackawanna 
Valley, purchased a large tract, including what was called 
Slocum Hollow, or what is now the site of the city of 
Scranton. It contained "the old red house," two other 
small dwellings, and a stone mill. With the exception of 
a few acres of cultivated land, the tract was covered with 
timber, a dense undergrowth, and a perfect tangle of 
laurel. 

The attention of the Scranton brothers was attracted to 
this place, and, Mr. Henry not being able to comply with 
the conditions of his purchase, they, in connection with 




^i^;'^$^^^^t:s^^^^fe:? 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 407 

Other parties, in May, 1840, entered into a contract for the 
property. 

The practicability of smelting ore by the agency of an- 
thracite coal, as yet was hardly established by success- 
ful experiment. Tw^o furnaces only now produced iron 
through heat generated by anthracite, and that under em- 
barrassments and in limited quantities. The young com- 
pany in which the Scranton brothers were the leading 
spirits, was now to take a prominent part in a series of 
experiments which were destined to contribute in no 
small degree to one of the practical arts which has com- 
municated a new and an undying impulse to modern 
civilization. 

The first experiment was made in 1841, and proved a 
failure ; the second was likewise unsuccessful, but in 
January, 1842. a successful blast was made ; others fol- 
lowed with increasing encouragement. The practical 
difficulties in manufacturing iron by antliracite were now 
considered as overcome, but the price that the triumph 
had cost, few understood, and none would ever under- 
stand, so well as George W. Scranton. He was the genius 
which presided over the struggles of many months, and 
even years, of hope deferred and of distrusting doubt 
which finally ended in complete success. 

The scientific difficulties were no sooner overcome than 
financial problems were to be encountered. They could 
make iron, but how could they make it pay ? The future 
city of Scranton was a straggling assemblage of huts, at a 
distance from every great market, and without conveni- 
ent outlet. These difficulties, with those arising from 
want of funds, would have broken the spirits of ordi- 
nary men, but our young adventurers, nothing daunted^ 
resorted first to one experiment and then to another, until 
they were able to exclaim, with Archimedes, Eureka — / 
have found it. A bootless effort to manufacture bar-iroQ 
and convert it into nails finally gave way to the project 
of a rollinQ:-mill for the manufjicture of railroad iron. 



408 HISTORY OF THE 

The great address of Col. Scraiiton succeeded with the 
leading men interested in the New York and Erie Rail 
road in making the contract to furnish rails needed by 
the road, at a lower rate than they could be procured 
elsewhere, upon the condition that the directors of the 
road would advance funds to enable the Scrantons and 
company to proceed with the business of making rails. 
This arrangement untied the Gordian knot of the Scran- 
tons' financial troubles. 

Success in the iron business was not an occasion for 
Col. Scranton to abate his energy in business. The manu- 
facture of iron was but one of his great business projects 
— it was but a part of a great system, which, when fully 
carried out, was to reform the entire business interests of 
this x)ortion of the country, and to change the whole face 
of society. His plan was to enlist capital abroad, to con- 
centrate it in the Lackawanna Yalley, and then to create 
outlets by railway east with North and South; and he 
lived to see his project succeed. 

Col. Scranton was not in the ordinary sense a politician, 
although he was a thorough student of political economy. 
He had been an old-line Whig, but for years had paid 
no attention to party politics. There was one principle 
which he maintained against all opposers, and that was, 
protection to home industry. Upon this issue he was 
sent to Congress, in 1858, by a majority of 3,700, from a 
district ordinarily polling 2,000 Democratic majority. He 
directed himself incessantly to his favorite theme through, 
the term, and was elected a second time. 

We are obliged to pass over a multitude of interesting 
incidents in the life of Col. Scranton for want of space, 
and must now proceed to a brief estimate of his character. 
In marking the character of a great man, it will be found 
that it is only a few qualities which distinguish them 
from other men and give them prominence. Such is the 
fact with the great and good man of whom we are now 
speaking. We begin with the great moral integrity of 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 409 

the man. He was sincere — he was lionest — his views 
were transparent. When in Congress he could get the 
«ar of the most ultra free-traders. " Southern fire-eaters" 
would listen to his arguments on protection and free 
labor. They would often say to him, " Scranton, we can 
hear you talk, for we believe you are honest." You 
might differ from his opinions, but you could not avoid 
believing in the man. His zeal was that of conviction. 
His heart was upon the surface — it was "known and 
read of all men." 

His energy was inexhaustible. He never yielded to 
discouragements, or acknowledged a total defeat. He 
sometimes failed, but always tried again ; and, if neces- 
sary, again and again, and triumphed at last. He often 
spent the night in concocting a scheme, and early dawn 
found him upon the path of its execution. Due time 
usually brought success, but delay never staggered him. 
He was fastened to his purpose, like Prometheus to the 
rock, and there he hung, until mountains of difficulty 
melted away, and the sun of success illuminated his patli. 
A man of less hope would have been despondent where 
he was confident, and one of a weaker will would have 
fainted when he was firm as a rock. 

Another trait of character holds the highest position. 
Ool. Scranton had the rare faculty of impressing his own 
ideas upon the minds of other men. This power depends 
upon an assemblage of qualities. An honest expression 
is essential to it. This expression means confidence. A 
sympathetic nature. His earliest sympathy in return, 
and sympathy exercises a marvelous control over the 
judgment. Draw a man into sympathy with your feel- 
ings and wishes, and you can lead him wherever you 
please. Blandness of manner is another attribute of this 
great power. A pleasant countenance, a happy face, has 
more power than logic. Good conversational powers is 
(»f the first importance in this enumeration. There must 
be definiteness of view, lucidness of description, brevity 



410 HISTORY OF THE 

in the statement of facts, naturalness and beauty in the 
illustrations, command of language, perfect ease in man- 
ner, and an expression of confidence both in your cause 
and in your success. You must never for a moment 
doubt the good sense and receptibility of the party you 
would win over. All these attributes of character CoL 
Scranton possessed in an eminent degree. 

The crowning glory of Col. Scranton' s character was- 
that he was a true Christian. All who knew him acknow- 
ledged this. His conversation and his manners were 
those of a true Christian gentleman. He lived beloved, 
and died regretted by all. His great mental labors under- 
mined his naturally sound constitution, and in the midst 
of his usefulness, and at the zenith of his fame, he waa 
called to his reward. 

THE LEHIGH VALLEY RAILROAD. 

A wild ridge of rock and forest twenty miles in widths 
cuts off the Lehigh from the Lackawanna, and forms the 
line of demarkation between the great northern anthracite 
coal-basin and the first southern or Schuylkill coal district 
of Pennsylvania. For many years it served the purposes- 
of the hunter and the lumberman, and frowned on daily 
intercourse between the people of the two sections of 
country. 

The first road to greet the Lehigh with an iron rail was 
the Lehigh Valley Railroad. While it crosses but a mere 
edge of the Lackawanna Valley whose commerce it aims to- 
reach and partake, it has, by its immense traffic and the 
admirable management of its interests, formed for itself 
a character well known in the two valleys it connects and 
traverses. 

This great road, incorporated in 1846, under the name 
of the Delaware, Lehigh, Schuylkill, and Susquehanna. 
Railroad, languished for years simply because the idea 
was generally accepted, that the rocky chasm, washed 




HHXRV ROBERTS, M. D. 



LACKAWANNA VALLEY. 413 

sometimes rudely by the Lehigh, could be by no possi- 
ble legislation or engineering turned to any practical 
railroad account. A bare organization of officers of the 
contemplated road existed from 1846 until 1851, up until 
which time $444.37^ had been expended conjointly in sur- 
veying the route and building a fraction of a mile of the 
road merely for the protection of its charter. No dis- 
tinctive step toward smoothing the Leliigh ledges for a 
locomotive was undertaken until those elements of a 
positive and substantial character, which were introduced 
more especially by Hon. James M. Porter, of Easton, and 
Hon. Asa Packer, of Mauch Chunk, began to be devel- 
oped and felt. 

In 1833, Asa Packer, a young, ambitious boy, born in 
Connecticut in 1805, moved into Mauch Chunk from the 
sap-woods of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, with a 
single jack-plane, hammer, handsaw, and a suit of rustic 
homespun, as his whole inheritance. He had neither friend 
nor acquaintance in the village, but being a man of clear 
discernment, excelling in the art of industry and frugality, 
distinguished for sobriety and sober sense, he devoted 
himself zealously to various industrious pursuits, until 
he became well known as one of the most eflBcient business 
men in the State, and rose rapidly in the confidence of 
the inhabitants of the Lehigh Valley, wliom he served 
on the bench and in two successive Congresses. Such 
was the man whose earnest qualifications inspired this 
then unpopular project with organic life and triumph, 
and whose liberality, exercised in the broadest spirit, 
gave to the public an institution of learning which will 
ti-ansmit the name of Packer down to all time. 

"On the 31st of October, 1851," writes Mr. Henry, in 
his interesting history of the Lehigh Valley, "Asa Pack- 
er became the purchaser of a large amount of the stock 
which had been subscribed, and commenced efforts to get 
additional stock subscribed and the road constructed. 
On the 13th of September, 1852, Robert H. Sayre was 



414 HISTORY OF THE 

appointed chief engineer for the construction of the road ; 
and on the 27th of November, 1852, Judge Packer sub- 
mitted a proposition for constructing the railroad from 
opposite Mauch Chunk, where it would intersect the Bea- 
ver Meadow Railroad, to the river Delaware at Easton, 
where it would intersect the New Jersey Central Rail- 
road and the Belvidere Delaware Railroad for a consid- 
eration, to be paid in the stock and bonds of the company, 
which was accepted by the stockholders, at a meeting in 
which all the stockholders, representing 5,150 shares of 
stock, were present. 

" On the 7th of January, 1853, the name of the company 
was changed by act of Assembly to that of the Lehigh 
Valley Railroad Company, and on the 10th of that month, 
James M. Porter was re-elected president, John N. Hutch- 
inson, secretary and treasurer, and John N. Hutchinson, 
Wm. Hackett, Wm. H. Gatzmer, Henry King, John T. 
Johnston, and John 0. Sterns, managers. 

"Although the formal contract with Judge Packer for 
the construction of the road was not signed until the 12th 
of February, 1853, yet he began the work immediately 
after the acceptance of this offer, on the 27th of Novem- 
ber, 1852, by commencing the deep rock cut at Easton. 
The work Avas prosecuted with vigor by Judge Packer 
himself, at some of the hardest cuts, and by sub-contrac- 
tors at other places, until its completion, September, 1855. 

"Judge Packer, in the construction of this road, encoun- 
tered great difficulties and embarrassments, from the rise 
in the price of provisions and necessaries for the hands — 
the sickliness of some of the seasons, the failure of sub- 
contractors and the necessary re-letting the work at ad- 
vanced prices, and the difficulty of raising money upon 
and disposing of the bonds of the company, from the 
stringency of the money market ; but, with an energy 
and perseverance seldom met with, he worked through 
it all." 

A triHe less than 15,000,000 tons of anthracite coal was 



Week. 


Total. 


Tons. Gwi. 


Tom. Cwt. 


1,4G1 02 


4,502 17 



LACKAWANNA VALr.EY. 415 

the entire shipment within the United States during the 
year 1867. An aggregate of 4,088,537 tons of this amount 
was taken from the Wyoming coal-basin, a portion of 
which, 2,080,156 tons, swelled the tonnage of this young 
giant railroad/ 2,603,102 tons of anthracite found its 
way over the Lehigh Valley road during the year 1868, 
being an. increase of 522,956 tons. 

' Some idea from whence this road derives its coal tonnage can be had by ref- 
erence to the following report for a single week. 

Lehigh Valley Railroad. — Report of coal transported over the above road 
for the week ending December 26, 1868. 
Fbou Wyominq Region. 

Franklin Coal Co , 

Audenreid Imp. & C. Co 

Lehigh & Susquehanna Coal Co 

Geriiiania Coal Co 

Wilkes Barre C. & I. Co 

Warrior Run Mining Co 

Parrish & Thomas 

New Jersey Coal Co 

Union Coal Co 

Wyoming Coal & Transportation Co 

Newport Coal Company 

Morris & Essex Mutual Coal Co 

Kverhart Coal Co 

Plymouth Coal Co 

H. B. Hiilman & Sou 

Bowkley, Price & Co 

Mineral Spring Coal Co 

Enterprise Colliery 

Burroughs 

J. H. Swoyer 

Linderman & Co 

Washington Mutual Coal Co 

West Pittston 73 14 

Barclay Coal Co " 

Shawnee 698 09 934 15 

■Consumers' Coal Co 275 17 1,133 15 

Harvey <k Brother 

Wyoming Valley 443 08 1,363 17 

Henry Colliery 

New England 329 16 1,260 10 

Delaware & Hudson Coal Co 

Maltby Colliery 74 18 74 18 

Oaylord Colliery 



202 18 


595 15 


307 12 


964 10 




76 15 


202 01 


1,083 10 


703 14 


3,442 1<J 



418 14 


1,408 17 


487 14 


1,247 10 


,181 07 


4,377 14 


472 02 


729 06 



416 HISTORY UF THE 

This road, originally intended to connect only Eastoa 
with Mauch Chunk, now runs up the Susquehanna River 
to Waverlj^, New York, passing through some of the- 
most picturesque scenery in the State. Emerging from 
the Lehigh ravine, it traverses the entire length of Wyo- 
ming Valley, on the south bank of the river, running 
within a stone' s-throw of the celebrated Monocasy or 
"Monockonock Island," crosses the Lackawanna at its 
mouth, and leads its quiet way under a ledge familiar 
with the sad, heroic scenes of Wyoming so touchingly 
portrayed in Campbell's Gertrude, then follows Gen. 
Sullivan's route and the old Indian pathway from the 
Great Plains to the plantation of the dusky queen, whose 
memory, cherished only to be despised, has been rendered* 
infamous forever. No part of this thoroughfare is desti- 
tute of historical reminiscence or interest to the traveler. 

It would be difficult, and probably impossible, to find 
a railroad in Pennsylvania whose ramifications and feeders- 
are more numerous and important, along its entire length, 
than tills. Forming one of the strong links in the great 
chain of communication between central and lower 

Cliaiincey Colliery 282 02 1,372 18- 

Fall Creek 45 05 321 11 

Ravine Colliery P. & E 

Butler, H. S. M 

Maryland Anthracite 50 12 2(;6 OT 

Morgan CoMery 

Tompkins 92 04 92 04 

Rough & Ready 

A. McJ. Dewitt 

Rock Tunnell 

Butler Colliery 207 09- 

Other Shippers 9 06 

Total Wyoming Region 7,729 15 

Total Beaver Meadovs^ Region 6,733 08 

Total Hazleton Region 14,422 16 

Total Upper Lehigh 159 12 

Total Mahanoy Region 1,095 10 

Grand Total 30,139 01 

Tnorease 1,614 05 



25,560 


14 


26,563 


19 


70,509 


06 


922 06 


8,814 


14 


132,370 


19 



LACKAWANNA VALLEV. 417 

Pennsylvania and southern New York, it derives addi- 
tional consideration and strength from the many active 
railroad tributaries swelling the volume of its traffic. 
Almost every valley wliose drainage fertilizes the Lehigh, 
rolls its tonnage and travel into this road with a bounteous 
hand. 

The Wyoming division of the Lehigh Valley Railroad 
opens a new channel to internal commerce, and, in the 
earnest hands of its superintendent, Robert A. Packer, 
Esq., maintains the same character enjoyed by the older 
portion of the road, and, like that, cultivates those rela- 
tions which connect the anthracite coal-basins of our State 
with the broad interests of the world on terms of mutual 
usefulness and advantage. 




H. HOLLISTER. 



APPJHJNDIX. 



LNDlA^I RELIC CONTROVERSY BETWEEX STEUBEX JEXKIXS AND II. 
HOIXISTER, RESULTING FROM THE FOLLOWING EDITORIAL IN THE 
" SCRANTON REGISTER," JUNE 22, 1865. 

The red man has left us forever, but we did not suppose that 
go many memorials of a departed race could be collected in the 
entire country, as has been gathered in Luzerne and Wyoming 
counties by Dr. HoUister, of Providence. His rare cabinet of 
Indian relics embraces some ten tJiOusand implements used by 
them in peace and war. Of the stone kind it is undoubtedly the 
l;ii;;est in the world, and of great value to the antiquarian. The 
doctor has refused the modest little sum of $2,000 for it, from a 
Massachusetts college. The articles are stone, flint, and bui-ned 
clay, tomahawks which have slain many a foe, skinning stones, 
rare pipes of exquisite workmanship, huge and small pestles, 
javelins or spears, arrow-points of the most delicate finish, beads, 
death malls, quoits, hoes, gouges, sling-stones, Indian pots, 
broken pottery rudely ornamented, lings, birds, amulets, ham 
mers, battle-a.ves, war-clubs, mortars, stones tor weaving nets, bone 
needles, and a hundred stone contrivances which made life in the 
wigwam so agreeable to the poor Indian : all make up a collection 
really unique, interesting, and inviting to all, and more especially 
to the antiquarian. We have looked the collection through 
repeatedly, and would recommend to our readers to call and 
examine them. His collection is open and free to all, and the 
doctor takes great pleasure in showing them to such as have a 
taste in that direction. 

We would note here that there appears to be a sort of rivalry 
between the doctor and Steuben Jenkins, Esq., of Wyoming, who 
is said to possess a large collection, but the doctor says it is hid 
awav in old boxes and barns in such a manner that no person can 



120 APPKNDIX. 

imagine what a glance would reveal. Now, if these gentlenieiv 
will unite their collections and place them alternately at Wilkijs 
Barre and Scranton, they will enable thousands to see their inter- 
esting collections, and by that means determine what the parties 
themselves can not do, which is the i-ichest, the rai-est, and the 
oest. This is the only mode of determining the question, and the 
determination of the question is one in which our whole commu- 
nity is interested. We hope they will consent to the proposition 



The following letter explains itself It will be seen that 
friend Jenkins is not to be stumped out of the belief that his 
collection is the collection. — Ed. Register. 

Wyoming, June 30, 1865. 

Editor " Sckanton Register " — Dear Sir : — I noticed in your 
issue of the 22d inst. an article upon the subject of " Indian. 
Curiosities." I take a great interest in every thing pertaining to 
the " Indians,'' and the relics of their early manners, customs, and 
arts, and particularly their stone implements of husbandry, the 
chase, war, &g. I have been gathering articles of this kind for 
more than thirty years past, from all parts of the United States^ 
and, as you suggest, have succeeded in getting together consider- 
able of a collection. I was somewhat surprised, however, to learn, 
that Dr. Ilollister, of Providence, liad " a cabinet embracing some 
ten thousand implements, which is undoubtedly the largest in the 
worW Did you ever calculate how many "ten thousand " are ? 
Did you ever properly conceive what the largest thing in the 
world was ? Sit down and think of it awhile before you state 
such things, and do not let your imagination run away with your 
better judgment, I am afraid you have been talking with the 
doctor lately about his collection. His enthusiasm frequently 
gets the better of him, and may have some influence over you. 

Now, I don't want it understood that there is any rivalry 
existing between the doctor and myself upon the subject of the 
largest collection. When I commenced making my collection, I 
had never heard of such a man as Dr. HoUister, My object \n 
collecting was to get at the history and character of the Indiait 
race, as they were delineated in their implements of husbandry,, 



APPENDIX. 421 

the chase, war, and ornament, and, tluougli tlieni, taking up the 
discoveries of such things all over tlie eartlfs surface, endeavor 
to trace out the antiquity and origin of the race. Enough lias 
been discovered to satisfy those who have given the subject care- 
ful consideration, that the whole earth was once peopled with a 
homogeneous race, who used stone implements for all the pur- 
poses of life, which are similar, and in many cases identical, with 
those used by our Indians, and which the doctor pretends to 
have found in such abundance that he now has ten thousand 
specimens. 

I don't know but that the doctor has the "ten thousand" 
spoken of. I don't know but that he has more than I have. It 
may be he has. It may be he has the largest collection in the world. 
It may be. I don't wish to detract from either the doctor's num- 
ber or size. I have an offer to make, however. I will place my 
collection alongside of the doctor's in any hall in Scranton, pro- 
vided one large enough can be had there, and will then leave it 
to the public, who visit them, or to any three or moi-e pei'sons the 
doctor and I can agree upon, to say which has the largest collec- 
tion — the best collection — the collection which best delineates the 
Indian cliaracter in every respect, as mechanics, as husbandmen, 
as huntsmen, as fishermen, as warriors, as artists, &c. The one 
in whose favor the decision is made shall then take both collec- 
tions. Of course I should expect the doctor to leave out of his 
L'xliibition every thing not properly belonging to a collection of 
that sort — every thing not legitimate. I would not want any 
imposition of any sort practiced upon the public in the matter. 

I shall w^ant it fairly understood, before entering into compe- 
tition wath the doctor, that the judges selected sliall be free from 
prejudice against my collection, because it has been kept in boxes, 
sheds, and barns, for the reason that it was too large to be kept 
in a pill shop. The fact is, I never kept my collection for show ; 
never made a show of it ; nor do I intend to do so very soon, 
unless there is a point to be gained by it, or a i)urpose to be sub- 
served. 

Can you get the doctor to agree to the jjrojjosition I make ? 
If you can I will meet him at your oftice some time soon, and 
settle the preUminaries. Yoirs, very respectfully, 

StEUBEX .J KNKTXS. 



422 APPENDIX. 

In reply to Mr. Jenkins's letter of last week, we make room for 
the following from Dr. HoUister. We do this most cheerfully, as 
we are in hopes that the discussion as to which has the largest 
and best collection of Indian relics, will eventuate in affording 
our citizens an opportunity of becoming judges in the matter. A 
sight of the collections is something to be desired. 

THE INDIAN RELIC CONTROVERSY. 

Editor " Scranton Uegister" — Dear Sir : — As you have call- 
ed public attention toward my collection of Indian relics, and as 
Steuben Jenkins, Esq., of Wyoming, in your last paper, questions 
the correctness of your statement, a word from me seems neces- 
sary. Friend Steuben is a very good theoretical Indian, and 
deserves the gratitude of all antiquarians, more for his zeal in 
gathering so many remembrances of the bravest race the world 
ever saw, than he does in lading them under a bushel and barns. 
We occasionally visit Steuben to see his Indian cabinet, which is 
large and invaluable. He goes to a drawer, unlocks and exhumes 
a rare tomahawk or two, watching your throat closely lest you 
might swallow a pestle or hatchet, and then he takes you to some 
secluded corner, and from an old box guarded by cobwebs, gives 
you a half-glimpse of some memento of the departed race, and 
then to the shed, where he draws out of barrels many relics, as 
the angler draws the sturdy bull-head from the sluggish stream. 

His collection is said to be magnificent, by those who have 
peeped into all his boxes and drawers, but mine is arranged in a 
" pill shop," where anybody can see it cheerfully and gratuitously, 
and it is too fine and valuable to be hid away for " thirty yeai's " 
in obscure nooks. They are imperishable in their character, and 
mostly made from stone — as iron and copper implements of the 
later Indian period have little or no value. 

Steuben objects to my i-elics being kept in a " pill shop," as he 
calls their unpretending abode, and yet he proposes to make a big 
show in Scranton. Well, suppose we have one. At considerable 
expense and labor, mine are now arranged in Providence. Let his 
be so arranged in Scranton. Or let the directors of the Wyoming 
fair, this fall prepare a safe, suitable place for each collection to 
be exhibited by Steuben and myself, then a committee chosen by 
us can determine which cabinet, by its size and variety, gives the 



APPENDIX. 423 

best illustration of the character and customs of the wild race, 
once sheltered by our grand old forests. The one whose collection 
as a grand whole shall be deemed best, shall receive a certificate 
or diploma, and the one second best, must pay $50 to the Home 
of the Friendless or some other charitable institution in Luzerne 
County. 

If I should possibly lose — (of which there is no danger, as 
mv collection is undoubtedly the largest in the world of its kind), 
I should have the pleasure of knowing that the public had seen 
his relics, which were " too large for a pill shop," but just the size 
for miserish boxes and remote shed-corners. 

Aside from this, it would not only bring dollars to the fair, 
but it would also diversify the character of that concern, which is 
usually made up mostly by Steuben and Bill Miner. The first 
one generally contributes a few bunches of fine grapes, and the 
last one furnishes a ride on horseback. 

H. HOLLISTER. 

Providence, July 20, 1865. 



Wyoming, July 22, 1865. 

Editor of the " Scranton Register" — Dear Sir : — It is the 
fate of genius to be misunderstood and undervalued. Lofty pre- 
tensions and brusque impudence command greater consideration, 
and insure more certain rewards than the mightiest genius, unat- 
tended with patronage or place. It seems to be the fate of some 
men, to be misapprehended and belittled, because they stand aloof 
from, and, in their business pursuits and particularly in their 
recreations, rise above the ordinary level of mankind. Their 
motives are not the motives of other men, and as other men can 
not appreciate them, they generally decry them. I have been led 
to these reflections, from the fact that since Dr. Hollister and I 
have been brought before the public in your very able paper, as. 
possessors of very fine collections of the relics of the Indian races- 
that once roamed monarch of this mighty Western world, not a few 
persons have been found who laugh at the idea that the collections 
are of real importance and value. Not a little of this have I 
heard and seen in my presence, and I always feel a pity for the 
man who indulges in it — from the fact that their views are on the 



.;^^ 



424: APPKNDIX. 

dollar and cent basis. If they were dollars that they could count, 
and there were " ten thousand " of them, they would hold their 
breath and stare in mute astonishment, but being " only ten thou- 
sand " relics of a once great and noble people, who scoi-ned sub- 
mission to or affiliation with a higher type of their species — they 
can only laugh at their possessors. 

The doctor and I, it appears, are fast drifting into a complica- 
tion of affairs, that will need wise and cool heads to unravel. I 
proposed to the doctor an exhibition of our respective collections, 
side by side, in some hall in Scranton, provided one could be 
obtained there large enough for the purpose — and the one having 
the best and largest collection, by a decision of the umpires, to 
take both. This the doctor declines, but makes this suggestion. 
He has at considerable expense and labor arranged his collection 
in Providence. He wants me at considerable expense and labor 
to arrange mine in Scranton, and then submit the decision to the 
people, who visit them. Well, suppose we do. I think I see mine 
arranged in a hall in Scranton, and then thrown open to the public 
examination. After a full and fair examination of my collection 
the immense throng start in procession to Providence. I see the 
long procession wending its way thither, down by the sand-banks, 
past the cemetery, on by the mud-hole, and turning the corner, 
commence Avinding their weary way up the high hill on which 
Providence is seated. The file-leadei- of the grand procession 
meets a denizen of the town, and inquires, " Where is the Indian—" 
" What ! have we an Indian among us ?" 
" I mean where is the Indian — " 
" Exactly, but have we an Indian among us ?" 
" Hold a moment, I mean where is Dr. Hollister's Indian col- 
lection," 

" Oh, yes, I understand you now, you turn up by the store, 
pass on down by the church, till you get to the foundery — then on 
the left you will find the doctor, with the latest story always out, 
his collection on exhibition, and the doctor always ready to 
expatiate on its merits, and declare it to be ' the largest in the 
world.' " 

Here is where the doctor would have me. Lawyers always 
understand this if doctors don't. They alwaj^s think that the 
last chance at a jury is worth twice as much as the first. I know 



APPENDIX. -±20 

that it is generally said that first impressions last the longest. 
While lawyers may believe that first impressions last the longest, 
they also believe that last impressions are the strongest. The 
doctor can't catch me in this way. 

The other suggestion made by tlie doctor is to place our re- 
spective collections on exhibition at the agricultural fair this fall. 
To this I have no objection under proper arrangements, but the 
idea that he or I at the end of the exhibition shall give $50 to the 
Home of the Friendless, or to any other institution, is the highest 
absurdity of which the doctor has lately been guilty. How long 
has the doctor been engaged in laboring for other people, and 
then paying some one else for what he has done ? I quit such 
things some time since. I find my labors better appi-eciated, and 
the results more satisfactory to myself when I get paid for mv 
labor, than when I work for nothing, or give the fruits of my 
labor to some one who has no claims upon me for them. No ! I 
don't go into arrangements by which I, at least, shall labor a 
week or two for nothing with the privilege of throwing in loO at 
the end of time. Doctor, you knew you couldn't catch me with 
such a preposterous proposition. I am too old for that, and you 
ought to have known better than to have proposed it. I Avill see 
if some reasonable arrangement can't be made to exhibit at the 
<3ounty fair this fall, but I care nothing about this myself I now 
have a silver cup, awarded to me by the Pennsylvania State fair, 
for my collections of Indian relics, as far back as 1860. I don't 
see how my honors would be added to by a diploma from the 
county fair, but to meet the doctor I am willing to exhibit at 
the county fair this fall under proper arrangements. 

I didn't think the doctor was so observant as to note the watch- 
ful care I bestowed on my collection when he visited it. But he 
watched as well as I. The fact is, Indian relics disappear, when 
the doctor is around, in a wonderful manner. They go as quietly 
and as rapidly as "Trout glide along the mountain streams." 
The doctor knows this, and the trouble is, I know it ; hence my 
watchfulness when he is about. 

Very respectfully yours, 

Steuben Jenkins. 



45(5 



THE INDIAN RELIC CONTKOVERSY. 

Editok of the " ScRANTON REGISTER " — Tlu' Indian's side of 
history has never yet been written, only in traditions perishing 
with the race that knew them. It never will be written, only in 
the rude stone memoi'ials they have left behind them. We shall 
read of homes reddened by the tomahawk, and of hearths black- 
ened by the fagot, but not of the wrongs urging the wild man to 
defend the plain where his wigwam stood. For one, I do not be- 
lieve that the same treacherous, thieving savage, rendered des- 
perate by misfortune and impoverished by the whites, emerging 
from the dark passes of the West, ai-e like those whose bones lie 
buried among us. Had we ever pursued toward the red men that 
humane, upright, consistent policy of Penn, instead of crowding 
them inch by inch southward and westward from homes they 
fought hard to protect, all the conflict with a race the American 
nation can not afford to lose, would have been avoided. For no 
race like this the world ever saw before or will ever know again. 
So much of calm courage — so much of true nobility — so much of 
unselfish friendship, could not be found in any other race or people 
on earth, and yet these memorials of another day and another race 
are the only visible evidences we have among us of the former 
occupants of our valleys. 

Men whose souls are built of wood, and whose pockets are unc- 
tuous with traffic, can form no idea of Indian lore and history, as 
taught by these relics, and it is not for such persons that Steuben 
Jenkins immures his in sheds, or that mine are shown to the world. 
Such undervalue them, because a man of dollars and cents can 
not understand their worth or philosophy, when in fact each 
tomahawk and spear-point — each pipe and battle-ax — each and 
every implement of the earlier Indian stone period has a mean- 
ing and a langu3,ge interpreting its history with as much 
faithfulness as the hiei'oglyphics along the Nile tell us of ancient 
times and glory. If I had space, article upon article could be 
written upon the part implements like these have played in history 
since Cain swung the war-club upon his brother Abel ; but the 
purpose of this article is to reply to Steuben's last, and while I am 
ut it I might as well trim up two or three limbs on the tree. 

Some New York plagiarist has just issued a new book, which.- 



APPENDIX. 427 

is sold on the cars, describing portions of our valle\% and he copies 
page after page from my "Contributions to the History of tlie 
Lackawanna Valley," without a word of acknowledgment or com- 
ment. Now is not this a cheap way of giving interest to a volume 
made from spoils ? The Historical Society of Wilkes Barre, whose 
cabinet of Indian relics is even inferior to that of Steuben's, had 
no existence until my little volume appeared, and my suggestions 
urging it had been seen, and yet how little credit do I get there. 

The "Nay-aug" companies of Scranton steal ray names as if 
they were bastard words, and now brave Steuben comes along and 
presumes to put in battle-array his boxes and barns, stuffed with 
the Lord only knows what, against my tine Indian collection ! Old 
rusty Wilkes Barre, how depraved and pretentious thou art in thy 
decrepitude ! 

Steuben and I, however, are going to have no quarrel, because 
he is as generous with his pen as he is covetous of his Lidian traps, 
and my object in writing has been to smoke them out of their 
holes. As he virtually acknowledges my collection to be finer 
than his (tin cup and all that he got at the fair '•'■far back as 1860 "), 
there will be no necessity for their exhibition at the fair this fall, 
to settle this point, because their removal would involve much 
expense, beside necessitating the attendance of several watchmen, 
as Steuben's memory is exceedingly defective and his hands very 
awkwai-d around Indian relics. 

In conclusion, I would say to my friends, wlio have eitlier read 
or laughed over these articles, that my collection (the largest in 
the world of its kind) is found in the airy village of Razorville, 
under the shadows of no protecting barn or box, but in a large 
office AvhoUy devoted to their free exhibition (and to Dr. Hoi lis- 
ter's Family Medicines), arranged finely in glass cases, always? 
open, except when Steuben is known to be in town, when they are 
immediately locked, as I have observed that he is a liberal pro- 
vider for those hungry and mysterious coat-pockets of his. 

Providence, J.t<^?.<5« 3, 1 865. H. Hollisteh 



INDIAN IIELICS. 



Editok " Scranton Register" — Dear Sii: : — Dr. Hollister has 
finally reached the goal of his anil)iti«)ii. lie lias backed down 



428 APPENDIX. 

entirely from liis lofty pretensions of having " ten thousand speci- 
mens " of Indian relics — " the largest collection in the world " — and 
fails in every way to respond to the offers I made him to decide 
the question of the respective merits of his collection and mine. 
I here renew the offers I have made, and agree to give the doctor 
all the benefit of any doubt that may exist in the minds of the 
persons that may be chosen to decide. A friend of the doctor's, 
who has seen both collections, says that the doctor was foolish for 
thinking of competing with me. It would seem that if that was 
M'eally the doctor's purpose, he had got fairly caught at it. But 
his last article shows pretty conclusively what the doctor has been 
at all the while, and shows, too, that the doctor has not been very 
foolish in the operation. His object was to puff up his collection 
of Indian relics, which I must admit is a very respectable one for 
the time the doctor has been engaged in making it, and advertis- 
ing his Family Medicines and his History of the Lackawanna Val- 
ley, all of which he has managed to do very cleverly and without 
cost. I feel that I have been taken in a little by the doctor, but 
you, friend. Hill, have been taken in and done for so much nicer 
than I, that I can not but laugh at your position. You, a long 
resident of Razorville, knowing the character of its inhabitants, to 
permit yourself to be used by one of them to advertise his nos- 
trums for nothing, I am astonished at you. If I laugh at your 
verdancy, I can not help it, and I hope you will not be offended. 

I attended the State fair at Easton, last fall, and while there I 
called upon Dr. Swift, of that place, who has a very large and 
well-selected collection of Indian relics, in every respect superioi" 
to Dr. Hollister's; and before leaving, the doctor gave me a stone 
hammer, found in the vicinity of the Ontonagon River, in the 
Lake Superior copper region. This hammer was made of a hard 
cobble-stone, that would weigh about three to four pounds, with 
a groove cut around it, to which the handle was attached with a 
withe. It was pretty well battered up with hard usage. Copper 
Avedges and chisels are found in connection with the hammer, in 
the ancient workings of the copper mines in that region. One ox 
these chisels was presented to me last week by Mr. Chambers, of 
Philadelphia ; so that I now have both a hammer and a chisel, both 
exceedingly rare and difficult to be obtained. Dr. Hollister, T 
presume, has neithe' 



APPKNDIX. 



429 



The Lake Superior copper region seems to liave been resorted 
to and worked by a race of men long before it became known to 
the white man. Whether these miners — tlie mound builders of 
the West, I have no doubt — and the Indians of the country were 
the same race or not, is matter for conjecture. That they were the 
mound builders who worked in the copper mines, I have no hesitancy 
m believing, from the fact that hardly a mound has yet been explor- 
ed, in which something made of copper has not been found. Priest, 
in his "American Antiquities," says: "A vast many instances of 
articles made of copper, and some of silver, have been met with in 
opening these mounds. Circular pieces of copper, intended either as 
medals or breastplates, several inches in diameter, have been found, 
very much injured by time." Rev. Robert G. Wilson, D. D., of 
Chillicothe, Ohio, furnished the Antiquarian Society within forma- 
tion of a mound which once stood near the center of the town, 
" Its height was fifteen feet, circumference 1 80 feet, composed of 
sand. In excavating this mound, on a level with the surrounding 
earth, they found a human skeleton, overspread with a mat manu- 
factured from weeds or bark, but greatly decayed. On the breast 
of this person lay ^chat had been apiece of copper^ in tlie form of 
a cross^ which had become verdigris.'''' 

The Historical Society of Wilkes Barre have a copper arrow- 
point, which was found on the site of the fortification which once 
stood on Toby's Creek, in the borough of Kingston, described by 
Chapman in liis history of Wyoming. 

Foster and Whitney, in their report of the explorations of the 
Lake Superior copper region, say : " It is well known that copper 
rings, designed for bracelets, are frequently met with in the western 
mounds. We have several of these relics in our possession." 

Samuel O. Knapp, agent of the Minnesota Company, in the 
spring of 1848, explored an ancient mine on the Ontonagon River. 
He gives this account of it: He found a depression twenty-six 
feet deep, filled with clay and a mass of moldering vegetable 
matter. When he had penetrated to the depth of eighteen feet 
with his excavations, he came to a mass of native copper ten feet 
long, three feet wide, and nearly two feet thick, and weighing 
over six tons. On digging around it, the mass was found to rest 
on billets of oak, supported by sleepers of the same material. The 
wood is dark-colored, and has lost all of its consistency. A knift- 



430 APPKNDIX. 

blade may be thrust into it as easily as into a peat-bog. The 
earth was so packed about the copper as to give it a firm suj)port. 
The ancient miners liad evidently raised it about five feet, and 
then abandoned the work as too laborious. Every projecting point 
was taken otf, and the exposed surface rendered perfectly smooth. 

Trees are found growing on the heaps of rubbish thrown out 
of these ancient mines. jNIr. Knapp counted three hundred :vii<l 
ninety-iive annular rings on a hemlock which he felled on one of 
these heaps. He speaks of finding these stone hammers, the 
largest of which was 12 x 5| x 4 inches, and weighed 39^ pounds. 
In addition to these, a copper gad, with the head much battered, 
and a copper chisel, with a socket for the reception of a handle, 
were found, containing the fragment of a wooden handle, which 
crumbled soon after being exposed. 

In clearing out one of these pits, at the depth of ten feet, a 
fragment of a wooden bowl was found, which, from the splintery 
pieces of rock and gravel imbedded in its rim, seemed to give 
evidence that it had been used in bailing water. 

At the Phoenix mine, a copper knife was discovered in the 
explorations of an old working. 

At Keweenaw Point and at Isle Royale, similar discoveries 
have been made. 

All must admit that the facts set forth above in regard to the 
excavations, and the stone and copper implements found therein, 
assign to them a very high antiquity ; but whether made by a 
race distinct from the Indians is a question about which there is 
some doubt, but I incline strongly to the opinion that we can not, 
nor need not, look beyond the Indians for a solution of the problem. 
I think it is their work. 

How fortunate to be the possessor of specimens of their stone 
and copper implements, used by them in their copper-mining 
operations so far back in the history of this country. 
Yours, very respectfully, 

Steuben Jenkins, 



INDIAN RELIC CONTROVERSY. 



Editor of " Scranton Register :" — Indian Steuben is on the 
•war-path again with his copper weapons; but as I intend to take 



APPENDIX. 431 

off his scalp before long, if he leinains in viir costume, you need 
fear no danger. 

Some weeks ago, Steuben took up your suggestion of exhibit- 
ing our respective collections of Indian relics side by side in 
Scranton, and he suggested that the one having the largest should 
take the other; but as I was too magnanimoiis to thus deprive 
him of the results of thirty years' labor, I declined the offer, but 
proposed that we exhibit them at the Wyoming fair, and tliat 
the one whose collection should be the best calculated to thiow 
light upon the customs, habits, and life of the aboriginal race, 
should receive a diploma, and that the one second best must pay 
$50 to the Home of the Friendless, or some other charitable 
institution. This offer he not only declined, but attempted to 
throw ridicule and suspicion upon my motives of philanthropy in 
offering to bestow charity upon any one in this manner. 

So your readers can see who is backing down. Instead of 
performing any such retrograde movement, I am determined if 
possible to draw his frozen contribution boxes out in daylight 
where his copper traps can be seen without a tallow candle, and 
then " the goal of vay ambition " will have been reached. iVnd 
now I not only renew my offer of their exhibition at Wyoming 
the coming fair, provided that assurance be given rae two weeks 
before the fair that a safe, suitable place will be provided for 
them, but I would here choose Steuben Jenkins one of the 
umpires to decide the matter, because I believe that he would 
give an honest decision, however " mysteriously Indian relics dis- 
appear when he is around." It is true he has every advantage of 
me, because he has made many a pilgrimage to Kazorville to see 
my vast collection and learn how to arrange his, besides this he 
telLs you that he has visited the collection of Dr. Swift, in Easton, 
but failed in his loquacious mood to say why he visited it. 
Knowing that he could not successfully compete with mine, he 
goes to Dr. Swift to get the lomi of his for the purpose of exhibit- 
ing them as his own ! Now, Steuben, this is not a graceful way 
to launch your canoe after a lost battle ; besides, how dangerous 
for Dr. Swift, if his collection is of any value I 

Goldsmith imparts vanity to the one writing of himself, but I 
did not suppose that I was so vain as to write my relics into 
notice for the sake of getting mv book and " nostrums advertised 



432 APPENDIX. 

for nothing " until Steuben discovered it. The volume spoken ot 
has been out of print since 1857, and can be purchased nowhere 
noAv ; and as to ray family medicines, I can not possibly supply 
the great demand for them now, and why should I seek gratuitous- 
advertisement, when you know, Mr, Hill, that I am in the habit 
of paying liberally for what I get in that line. 

I concede that Steuben makes out a strong case for himself 
on paper (and Avhat sharp or lazy Luzerne lawyer could not ?) 
and that he has a few copper hatchets — probably of French man- 
ufacture — which I have not, but I regard the wooden, iron, and 
copper implements found along our cataracts and caverns as of 
little or no value to the antiquarian, although I have a few copper 
arrow-points myself, which were found in an Indian's grave near 
Tunkhannock, and presented to me with many other relics, some 
years ago, by J. M. Robinson, Esq., of Meshoppen. 

Important archaeological explorations pursued with admii'able 
vigor and extraordinary success in the West — in South America, 
and along the lakes of Zurich and Neufchatel in Switzerland, 
adduce evidence that the construction of the copper relics some- 
times found in western mounds, belonged not to any of our knovvik 
Indian races. In fact, the Indian knew nothing of the use audi 
value of copper till taught by the whites. 

Their creation pertains to the bronze period, which some of 
the Swiss archaeologists have concluded to represent an antiquity 
of from two thousand nine hundred to four thousand two hundred 
years; the age of stone from four thousand seven hundred tO' 
seven thousand, and the wliole period of from seven thousand 
four hundred to eleven thousand years. 

I have some rare stone jiipes, some elegant stone chisels for 
removing the char fi-om canoes, and a singularly beautiful stone 
bird or idol, found along the Indian path crossing the farm of Dr. 
Throop, in Blakeley, and presented to me by Mr. Shaw. I have 
never seen or heard of any thing of the kind ever being found in 
the country before. I also have a curious death-mall^ constructed 
from a huge ovoid pebble, weighing twelve pounds, similar to 
that used by the Indians to kill their captives. After the battle 
of Wyoming, in 1778, an instrument like this and a war-club in 
the hands of Queen Esther, mailed and slew the captives around 
Bloody Rock. 



APPENDIX. 433 

While the copper utensils spoken of by Steuben give nothing 
but a faint conjectural idea of the occupancy of the county at the 
time of their deposit, and belong to a period subsequent to tliat 
of which I write, the antiquity of the stone weapons of war is 
alike instructive and wonderful. 

The bow and the arrow are spoken of in Genesis and many 
other places in Holy Writ. Arrows were first made of reed ; then 
of strong, light Avood, with a stone arrow-point fastened to the 
end. Among the Hebrews, especially among the tribes of Eph- 
raim and Benjamin, archers were numerous. 

Among the ruins of the Temple of Luxor, on the Nile, two or 
three thousand years old, one apartment exhibits a great battle, 
in which the Egyptians, armed with bows and arrows, gained a 
great victory over their Asiatic enemies equipped with javelin and 
war-club. 

In one battle between the Persians and the Tartars, 800 b. c, 
it is related by Persian historians that their great chief Rustam, 
with his own war-club, slew 1,160 of his foes ! 

Fragments of Nineveh, now in the British Museum, introduce 
us to their monarchs thirty centuries ago, clad in costume of war 
and armed only with the arrow and the bow. 

The javelin or spear was a missile weapon, and took the place 
of our swords and guns. It is often mentioned in the Bible in 
connection with light-armed troops. It could be thrown at the 
enemy at a great distance, and in the great conflicts between the 
Persians and Macedonians, the white javelins flew and fell like 
snow-flakes upon the contending legions. When Xerxes crossed 
the Hellespont with his gleaming millions, he was dared and 
checked by the Spartans, armed with such missiles and animated 
by no common courage. The Medes were celebrated for the use 
of the bow, with which they fought on horseback with terrific 
effect. Their arrows were poisoned with a bituminous liquor 
which burned with such intensity that water increased the heat. 
This is the first record we have of the poisoned arrow used so much 
by the red warrior. I have several poisoned arrows in my collection. 
"The sword," sang Mahomet twenty-four centuries ago, "is 
the key of heaveu and hell, courage then my children, fight like 
men, close up your ranks — discharge your arrows and the day is 
your own ! " 

28 



434 APPKNDIX. 

In the hands of Tell, the arrow saved his son and gave fi'ee- 
■dom to the land of the Alps. 

The Hungarians threw a small stone ax or tomahawk with 
such dexterity at a hundred paces that a victim always fell. As 
late as 1461 arrows tipped with Steuben's copper were used by 
the English nation as a weapon of defense. 

A tribe of Indians in Paraguay, South America, with these 
rude weapons have maintained their independence against all the 
power and treachery of the Spaniards for three hundred years. 

The exploring party for the Pacific Railroad, in 1856, found 
along the Colorado many of these stone tomahawks yet in use 
among these savages. 

Up the old Nile and along the track of the brave and lamented 
Speke, the black warrior still goes forth thirsting for blood, 
with club and lance and ever-beating drum. Is it strange then 
that these stone relics running along the history of so many strange 
centuries, should be gathered and cherished ? And if it " is fortu- 
nate to be the possessor of" a few copper trinkets relating to a 
people and an epoch alike indefinite and uncertain, how much 
greater the pleasure to know that you can glance each day over 
stone relics whose antiquity carries us back to the earliest periods 
of traditional or written history ! 



H. HOLLISTKU. 



Providence, August 17, 1865. 



INDIAN RELICS. 

Editor of " Scranton Register" — Dear Sir : — I have read 
the whole of Dr. HoUister's last letter relating to the " Indian relic 
controversy." It is true I read it in a state of great trepidation 
and alarm, for the arrows, spears, tomahawks, axes, death-malls, 
scalping-knives, &c., that the doctor hurled at me from his vast 
magazine, whizzed and buzzed so about my head, as to keep me 
in a perpetual dodge, and yet I read it — all of it. You will won- 
der, and so do I, as I look back at the dangers thi-ough which I 
passed in doing so. Happily, however, 1 escaped unharmed, and 
a careful examination convinces me that my scalp is still on. 

The doctor renews his proposal, " that we exhibit our collections 



APPKNDIX. 485 

at the Wyoming fair this fall, and tliat tlie one whose collection 
should be the best calculated to tluow light upon the customs, 
habits, and life of the aboriginal race should receive a diploma, 
and that the one second best must pay $50 to the Home of the 
Friendless Children in Wilkes Barre, or some other charitable 
institution, provided that assurance be given him two weeks before 
the fair, that a safe, suitable place will be provided for them." 

This offer I no longer refuse, but accept of the same, and 
assure the doctor that a safe and suitable place will be provided 
for his collection, and I will get this assurance in writing from the 
officers of the society and forward to liim in a few days. 

The Indian relic controversy, so far as the doctor and I are 
concerned, is now ended. The point I aimed at, and which the 
doctor seemed to desire, — a public exhibition of our respective 
collections, side by side, and a decision as to which has the best 
and largest collection, — is now provided for. 

It remains, however, for me to say a word in reference to the 
doctor's very extraordinary learned disquisition upon the subject 
of Indian relics. I must confess my great surprise at the antiquity 
of the age of stone. I was aware that it commenced with man, 
nearly but not quite six thousand years ago, but until I read the 
^loctor's article I was not aware that it extended back some five 
thousand years before man appeared upon the earth — altogether 
some " eleven thousand years." Man was, as I have stated — taking 
the best authority we have upon the subject — created a little less 
than six thousand years ago. I wish the doctor or some one else 
would inform " the Avhole world and the rest of mankind," who 
made stone implements eleven thousand years ago, who they made 
them for, and what use they made of them ? Not more surprised 
was I to learn from the doctor's article, for the first time in all my 
reading, that " Mahomet sang twenty-four centuries ago." As I 
understand it, Mahomet flourished but a little over twelve cen- 
turies ago. I wish the doctor would inform me in what song of 
Mahomet he finds the language he attributes to him. I have 
Mahomet's writing, and have not as yet seen the song containing 
the language the doctor attributes to him. But it was twenty-four 
centuries ago. The doctor may forget in so long time where to 
find it. But where does the doctor get his new chronology? 
The stone period, extending back " eleven tliousand years ! " Ma 



436 APl'KNDIX. 

hornet singing " twenty-four centuries ago /" I can't understand 
it. The fault is mine, I doubt not. I feel sometimes — and I don't 
know why I should not feel so now, as I stand before the mighty 
mass of learning the doctor has accumulated before me — somewhat 
as the great and learned Laplace did at the close of his long and 
brilliant career, " that what I know is little, while what I do not 
know is immense." I hope to live and learn yet for a time, and 
with the doctor as a teacher, I have no doubt I may get to know 
something. 

The doctor says "he has a curious death-mall, constructed 
from a huge ovoid pebble." When I read that, I thought myself 
that the doctor had a cnrious-inall that would be the death of 
somebody yet. I came near laughing myself to death the first 
time I saw it, and I came a little nearer to it when I read the 
doctor's last article. The fact is, I was confined to my house with 
illness for four days afterward, and I can give no other cause 
for it than that curious mall — a mere water-washed stone, having 
no more marks or signs of Indian workmanship upon it than the 
doctor's phiz has. 

If the doctor will read history a little more carefully, he will 
find that it was the Parthians and not the Medes who were cele- 
brated for the use of the bow and arrow on horseback. Does the 
doctor know what David killed Goliath with ? Has he any weapon 
of that sort in his collection ? 

In my last, I made the suggestion that while it was matter of 
doubt among archgeologists whether the people who built the 
mounds were the same that inhabited the country when first dis- 
covered by the whites — I was satisfied that they were one and the 
same people. But few facts can be gathered on which to found a 
hypothesis, either way, but those facts, however few, when dis- 
covered should have their full weight. Schoolcraft, the learned 
Indian antiquarian, who made, in August, 1843, an elaborate ex- 
amination of the mounds found at Grave Creek, Virginia, says that 
" several polished tubes of stone were found in one of the lesser 
mounds. They were about one foot long, one and a fourth inches 
in diameter at one end, and one and a half at the other. They 
are made of a fine, compact, lead-blue steatite, mottled, and con- 
structed by boring in the manner of a gun-barrel. This boring is 
continued to within three-eighths of an inch of the large end, through 



APPKNDI.X, 437 

which but a small aperture is left. If this small aperture be looked 
through, objects at a distance are more clearly seen. Its construc- 
tion is far from rude, and it was probably designed as a tele- 
scope." 

Joseph Tomlinson, who settled at Grave Creek in 1 TV", first 
discovered the mounds thei-e. Ills son, A. B. Tomlinson, in 1837 
commenced excavating the larger mound, and in it, among other 
things, he found a lot of beads, made of a kind of poi-celain, simi- 
lar in appearance to the material out of which dentists manufac- 
ture artificial teeth. I have in my collection a polished tube of 
stone, exactly like the one described by Schoolcraft, which was 
found some three years ago at Northumberland, in this State, in 
excavating for the railroad ; and I also have a very large and 
beautiful string of beads, of the kind found by Tomlinson, which 
were dug out of some Indian grave at Wilkes Barre a year ago. 
In addition to these are the facts of pottery and copper imple- 
ments being common to the mound and to our Indians, the infer- 
ence and proof are, therefore, very strong that the mound-builders 
and the Indians were one and the same people, and that they were 
1 linvf no doubt. The proof is all in that direction. 

Aiiotiier word to the doctor and I am done. He should be 
cortain of his facts before he states them as such, or draws con- 
clusions from them. This is the great duty of every inquirer after 

truth. Yours truly, 

Steuben .Jenkins. 



THE INDIAN RELIC CONTROVEKSV. 

As Steuben Jenkins wishes to bury the hatchet for the pur- 
pose of saving his own scalp, and as I value copper trinkets too 
lightly to desire the possession of the top of his head, which for 
the last few weeks has been quivering with scalping dreams, we 
will smoke the calumet awhile, so that this article will be the 
last one upon Indian relics the public will have for some time ; 
not but what very much could be written about the former occu- 
pants of our valley and their memorials : but how comparatively 
few care for the relics of the red men! although as long as spring 
can awaken flowers from the meadow, these memorials will have 
their interest and value to the antiquarian. 



438 



APPENDIX. 



I will briefly answer Steuben's objections in the order of their 
appearance. 

1st. The ridiculous importance he gave to his copper hatchets, 
tfec, some weeks ago — which were all of European manufacture — 
vanished the moment I exhibited their utter want of claim to 
antiquity, as shown by Squier, Charlevoix, Bartram, and Brabcuf, 
leaving Steuben nothing to do but to sing " the song of Mahomet 
twenty-four centuries ago." Mahomet was born 569 a. c, and 
his flight took place 622 a. c, as every student of history knows, 
but the typographical error made my article read twenty-four 
instead of twelve centuries ago. Steuben writes too much, and 
reads too little in his Koran to acquire or impart knowledge, 
or appreciate the historical facts I have so liberally brought to 
his view. 

2d. I am sorry that I once exhibited that " curious death- 
mall" to him, because I fear that it has knocked him senseless 
forever, and yet that stone implement of death attracted him once 
to Providence, and then how his eyes wished and his mouth 
watered as he gazed on its vast proportions safely reposing under 
glass, while the key was safe in my own pocket ! And when he 
found that no persuasion could allure this unique and valuable 
stone into his collection (of boxes hid in sheds), he discovered 
that it was nothing more than " a mei*e water-washed stone !" 
Steuben, the fact is, that the upper end of the county is too much 
for your fussy copper kettles, even after a very clever Pittstoii 
doctor helped you scour them up. 

3d. It is true that the Parthians or Scythians — now the Tar- 
tar race — were among the most skillful archers in the world on 
horseback, and shot their arrows with unerring precision even on 
a gallop; but if Steuben will look into the same history he refeis 
me to, he will find that the first historical fact known of the Vwr- 
thians is that they were the subjects of the Medes, fioni Avhom 
they learned their skill in archery. This was before the Tartars 
became powerful under the great Tamerlane. 

4th. Would it not be creditable for Steuben to read some- 
thing of chronology and archaeology, as Avell as to interpret cor- 
rectly what I write ? I stated that " the Swiss archaeologists have 
concluded that the age of bronze may represent an antiquity of 
from 2,900 to 4,200 years, the age of stone from 4,700 to 7,000 



APPENDIX. 439 

years, and ilie whole series a period of iVoni 7,000 to 11,000 
years." 

All must acknowledge the imperfection of archaeological 
record, and presume that a mere definite chronology will event- 
ually be established. Kenedy, in his Scriptm-al Chronology, says 
that 300 diiferent opinions, founded upon the Bible, may be col- 
lected as to the length of time that has elapsed between the crea- 
tion and the birth of Christ. Fabricius, in his Bibliotheca Anti- 
quaria, has given a list of 140 of these calculations. I would 
refer Steuben to these works, also to the chronological works of 
Dr. Hale, Prof Playfair, and DesvignoUes. And although the 
literature of the Swiss is merged into that of France and Ger- 
many, friend Steuben would find great information in perusing 
the works of Lavater, Sismondi, Haller, Euler, Le Sage, Necker, 
and other Swiss authors. 

The " stone polished tube" in Steuben's possession, he thinks 
was used by the Indians as a telescope. If it were possible to 
conceive of any thing more comical than an Indian, inhabiting the 
forest so dense that he could not see his own nose, looking through 
Steuben's " polished tube" as a telescope into the thicket, it might 
be found in the idea of Steuben's, that the " long polished tube" 
was ever used by the aborigines for such a purpose ! 

" Lo I the poor Indian whose untntored mind 
Sees God in the forest," through Steuben's long tube 1 

Schoolcraft no doubt drew an honest inference in the matter 
from the light accessible then, but there is no possible evidence 
in Indian histories or antiquarian explorations of any such use 
being made of these " polished tubes." I have a broken portion 
of one in my possession, which from my knowledge of Indian 
character and habit, I am satisfied was used, like all these tubes, 
V)y their medicine-men to render their incantations more potent 
and effective. Spectacles nor telescopes never vexed an Indian's- 
eye. So much for Steuben, who has switched himself off the- 
track, where I am sorry to leave him — out on the switch. 

In Wyoming Valley, where the Indian fought with tomahawk 
and war-club to save his hunting-grounds, fortifications exist 
whose history has been lost even to tradition. 

Aloiiii the Lackawanna, Indian tribes loft no stich tra.'C. 



440 APPENDIX. 

Although from careful explorations there appears to have been no 
less than seven Indian villages along the Lackawanna — all stand- 
ing upon its eastern bank — but a single mound denotes their place 
of burial. Evidences of villages are found in implements of stone 
and clay scattered along the river, generally where some tribu- 
tary comes in. One peculiar feature appears in the fact, that 
where the broken pottery is most abundant, no stone utensil 
other than a corn pounder or pestle is found within twenty or 
thirty yards — showing that the braves practiced archery away 
from the shadows of their wigwams. Near the late Dr. Robin- 
son's, a little stream puts into the Lackawanna, on the bank of 
which, rising into a gentle knoll, many relics are seen, and yet no 
culinary utensils are found. Near this point is seen a small ele- 
vation which I have named Gapoose Mound^ as it stands at the 
head of the old Indian meadow of Capoose. At the time of the 
first settlement of Providence by the whites, in 1770, there were 
about a dozen graves here. In 1799, however, a party of persons, 
one of whom still survives, opened these graves. A small copper 
kettle of European manufacture, large quantities of wampum and 
arrow-heads were exhumed, carried away and lost. 

Of the Indian's mortar, or mill, for pounding na-sump, or 
samp, but few are found in the country unbroken. Whoever has 
had the patience to toil up the mountain side to Bald Mount in 
Newton, will find in a huge rock projecting over the precipice a 
number of holes or Indian mortar-places, made in the stone by the 
patient wild man, which no doubt were used by them for domes- 
tic purposes. Some have the capacity of a gallon. Of course 
portable ones were generally used by them, sometimes made of 
wood, but oftener of stone. 

This height was no doubt chosen for a camp-place, so as to 
enable the Indians a chance to look down into the forest through 
those " polished tubes." 

How long the Indian smoked his pipe along the Hudson or 
Mohawk before the discovery, we know not, but the white man 
was first cursed with the knowledge of tobacco in 1492. No arti- 
cle of luxury was constructed with more care — cherished with 
holier memories — loved with more constant fervor than the 
Indian's pipe. Their calumet, or pipe of peace, was among the 
most prized and sacred articles of all the stone implements of tlie 



APPENDIX. 441 

wigwam. I have in my collection a large number of pipes of 
rare and exquisite workmanship. 

I also have some elegant moose-skin robes, such as were 
worn by Rocky Mountain chiefs, porcupine necklaces, and hunt- 
ing-belts for stringing scalps and trophies, medicine bags, and 
war caps in full plume — but these perishable things, while they 
attract the superficial eye, have no more real value than copper 
implements. So much for Indian stone relics, which some day 
will gather around them more interest than they can possibly 
command now. And yet " what are they good for ?" asks some 
jingler of dollars. If every line of written history was oblitera- 
ted forever, the presence and progress of races — their character 
and conquests — the diffusion of tribes — their relative approach to 
or departure from civilization — most of their habits, and many of 
their religious notions could be plainly elucidated by the aid of 
these relics, which to the unpracticed eye seem like rude, unmean- 
ing stone. Upon the fairest face that ever smiled or wept, beauty 
will perish, and lips proudly glowing with hopes of many sum- 
mers, dissolve into untroubled earth, forgetting and forgot, while 
these sad memorials of another day and another race, whose voice 
gives back no echo from the wild, neglected by many, <lespised 
by more, and treasured but by few, when many a voice is still, 
and many a heart is cold, these simple relics will remain perfect 
in their integrity, and beautiful in their silence ! 

H. HOLLIBTEK. 

Sept. V, 1865. 



The following report of the Committee on Indian Relics, exhib- 
ited at the late fair of the Lucerne County Agricultural Society, 
will prove of interest to our readers. — [Editor Lucerne Union.] 

The Committee appointed by the Lucerne County Agricultural 
Society to report upon the Exhibition of Indian Relics, made by 
Dr. Hollister and Steuben Jenkins. Esq., at the recent Annual Fair 
on the Society's grounds, near the Wyoming battle-field, take un- 
usual pleasure in saying that the exhibition was in every respect 
far superior to any thing anticipated or looked for. The respective 
collections of these gentlemen are a monument to their untiring 
industry and love of science. They will challenge the admiration 
of all men in all places where hereafter they may be evhibited. 



442 APPENDIX, 

To the man of science and learning they are a voluyne of American 
history, to be read and studied nowhere else. A single glance 
over these splendid collections gives almost every implement used, 
by the red man, whether in the fight, or the chase, the wigwam 
or the corn-field, for there are the bow and the arrows, the knile 
and the tomahawk of the warrior, the rude mortar and pestle for 
the squaw, and the delicate arrow-head for the early practice of 
the Indian boy. Here the book, and the only book of centuries 
of aboriginal savage life, in war and in peace, unfolds to the eye 
the living history of a people fast disappearing from their ancient 
grounds toward the setting sun. We congratulate the Agricul- 
tural Society in having been permitted to furnish to its numerous 
visitors at their fair, so unique a display, awakening in the bosoms 
of many of them such thrilling recollections of the bloody tragedy 
once enacted on this same field. We have heard on all sides since 
the opening of the exhibition but one continued expression of 
praise and thanks to Messrs. Hollister and Jenkins. We are cer- 
tain that every man, woman, and child, who have been gratified 
by a sight of these relics, will not only join the Committee in 
thanks to those gentlemen, but will co-operate with them in the 
work in which they are engaged. In judging upon the compara- 
tive size and merits of the respective collections, the Committee, 
after a careful examination, concluded that the diflerence between 
them was but slight, and as the one in whose favor that difierence 
seemed to predominate, desired that the Committee, if practicable 
and satisfactory to the Society, should render no decision upon 
that point, but should treat both collections as equally meritorious 
and entitled to the consideration of the Society, they have con- 
cluded to adopt this view of the subject. The Committee would 
therefore recommend that the special thanks of the Lucerne Agri- 
cultural Society be extended to both Dr. Hollister and Mr. Jenkins, 
and that in addition thereto there be awarded to each of those 
gentlemen, by the Society, a silver pitcher or goblet, of value not 
less than fifty dollars, with suitable inscriptions thereon to com- 
memorate the facts. E. W. Sturdkvant, 

C. DORRANCE, 

C. Parsons, 

Adw. T. McClintock. 

John N. Conykgham, 

Committee. 



II. 

THE LACKAWANNA VALLEY FIFTY YEARS AOO AND NOW. 

SoRANTON, settled less than a century ai^o, named after the 
original Scrantons, and incorporated into a city in 1866, is the 
largest one of its age in its commercial and industrial develop- 
ment and in the growth of all the elements of civilization of 
any city east of the Mississippi Eiver. 

When the writer first passed through it in 1837 it had but two 
dwellings, inhabited by Barton Mott, the miller, and the elder 
Slocums. It had no church, no store or tavern, saloon or post- 
office, and even the stage-coach, on its tri-weekly trips from 
Wilkes Barre to Carbondale, ran no nearer to it than Hyde Park, 
luilf a mile away. A single narrow wagon-road, crouched upon 
cillier side with low, dense shrubbery, led the way through it. 
Between Dunmore and Scranton stood but two solitary houses. 

In the old Wurts and Drinker maps of the valley of 1826, 
now in my possession, made by those gentlemen with a view of 
running their proposed railroads from the Susquehanna to the 
Delaware, this section was simply marked " Slocums," commend- 
ing itself to the eye only by the half-employed, excellent water- 
privileges of the wild-throbbing and trout-filled Nay-aug. 

In 1840 the population of Scranton was about 100 persons, 
but the census report as late as 1850 gave the population of 
Providence township, without giving Scranton either name or 
notice because there was no Scranton to name. Three years 
later it was estimated at 3000 souls. In 1860 it was 9223. The 
percentage of its growth from that time until now, owing to the 
iron and coal industry, has been marvellous. In 1870 its popu- 
lation was 35,092; in 1880, 45,850; in 1881, 48,672; in 1884, 
67,062 ; in 1885, 70,000 and over. 

The entire city has a territorial area of 19-^ miles. It is five 
miles square and twenty miles in circumference, with five hun- 
dred streets, named and numbered, which are over one hundred 
miles in length. 

443 



444 APPENDIX. 

Scranton is situated in what is known as the Northern An- 
thracite Coal Field, embracing an area of 198 square miles, or 
126,620 acres of coal which is from thirty to fifty feet thick, 
yielding about 6000 tons to the acre, making a total of 7,603, 
200,000 tons. Up to the present time but three hundred mil- 
lion tons of this has been mined and marketed. The rest lies 
embedded in the bosom of mother earth. 

" With such a basis for prosperity," says the Eev. David Spen- 
cer, to whom, as well as to Colonel Price, we are indebted for many 
of the facts herein stated, " it is impossible to predict any limit 
to the grand future of Scranton and the Lackawanna Valley." 

Its streets are wide and straight, and, considering the youth- 
fulness of the city, have many things about them superior to 
streets in older seaport cities. Give Scranton time for more de- 
velopment, and we can have the finest streets of any city in the 
world. Our municipality now expend $10,000 a year on our 
highways, less than $500 for each of the twenty -one wards. 

Our postal facilities, which were introduced in 1884, through 
the instrumentality of Hon. Joseph A. Scranton, our present 
popular member of Congress, and postmaster, Edward C. Ful- 
ler, work to the satisfaction and advantage of all, and are very 
conducive to the 75,000 or 80,000 inhabitants of the city. 

the churches op scranton. 

The churches of Scranton are numerous and generally well 
patronized. 

Adams Avenue M. E. Church. — Adams Avenue. Eev. L. C. 
Mullcr, pastor. 

Anshe Chesed (^Jewish Church). — Linden Street. Rev. S. 
Freudenthal, rabbi. 

Chestnut Street Baptist Church. — Chestnut Street. Rev. Owen 
James, pastor. 

Christian Church. — N. Main Avenue. Rev. C. W. Cooper, pastor. 

Church of the Good Shepherd {Episcopal). — Monsey Avenue. 
Rev. Joseph P. Cameron, S.T.B., rector. 

First German Baptist Church. — Pittston Avenue. Rev. J. H. 
Meyers, pastor. 

First M. E. Church of Providence. — N". Main Avenue. Rev. A. 
J. Van Cleft, pastor. 




I.. A. WATRES. 



APPENDIX. 447 

First Presbyterian Church. — Washington Avenue. Rev. S. C. 
Logan, pastor. 

First Presbyterian Church of Providence. — Church Avenue. 
Rev. George E. Guild, pastor. 

First Welsh Baptist Church. — S. Main Avenue. Rev. J. W. 
Williams, pastor. 

German M. E. Church. — Adams Avenue. Rev. Jacob Kolb, 
pastor. 

Grace Reformed Episcopal Church. — 328 Wyoming Avenue. 
Rev. G. Albert, rector. 

Green Rid.ge M. E. Church. — Corner Monsey Avenue. Rev. J. 
V. Newell, pastor. 

Green Ridge Street Presbyterian Church. — Rev. M. F. Stahl, 
pastor. 

Holy Trinity Lutheran Church. — Services held in Y. M. C A. 
Hall, Lackawanna Avenue. Rev. M. L. Zweizig, pastor. 

Hyde Park M. E. Church. — N. Main Avenue. Rev. G. M. Col- 
ville, |)astor. 

Jackson Street Baptist Church. — Rev. N. B. Nay lor, pastor. 

Methodist Episcopal Church. — Hampton Street. Rev. G. C. 
Lewis, pastor. 

Park Place Chapel {M. E.). — Court Street. Rev. H. H. Dresser, 
])astor. 

Penn Avenue Baptist Church. — Penn Avenue. Rev. David 
Spencer, D.D., pastor. 

Plymouth Congregational Church. — Jackson Street, near S. Main 
Avenue. Rev. Jonathan Edwards, pastor. 

Primitive M. E. Church. — E. Market Street. Rev. H. G. Rus- 
sell, pastor. 

Providence Welsh Baptist Church. — N. Main Avenue. 

Second Presbyterian Church. — Jefferson Avenue. Rev. T. R. 
Beebei', pastor. 

St. David's Church {Episcopal). — Tenth Street. Rev. Joseph 
P. Cameron, S.T.B., rector. 

St. Luke's Church (^Episcopal). — Wyoming Avenue. Rev. 
J. Philip B. Pendleton, S.T.B., rector; T. F. Hunt, senior 
wai'den ; A. D. Holland, junior warden. Vestrymen : John 
Jermyn. G. L. Dickson, S. M. Nash, B. H. Throop, and J. II. 
Bessel. 



448 APPENDIX. 

St Mary's Church (Catholic).— WWWam Street. Kev. M. Whitty,- 
pastor; Rev. Thomas Kernan, assistant. 

St. Mary's Church (German Catholic). — River Street. Rev. 
John Sebelle, pastor. 

St. Patrick's Church (Catholic).— V rice Street, Rev. J. B. 
Whelan, pastor. 

St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church. — Ash, corner Prescott 
Avenue. Rev. Eugene Weisskopff, pastor. 

St. Vincent's Church (Catholic). — Wyoming Avenue, corner 
Linden Street. Rt. Rev. William O'Hara, Bishop of Scranton 
Diocese and pastor; Rev. R. A. McAndrews, rector; Rev. T. F. 
Coflfoy, Ist assistant; Rev. P. F. Broderick, 2d assistant; Rev. 
Dr. McManus, 3d assistant. 

Washburn Street Presbyterian Church. — Washburn Street, cor- 
ner S. Hyde Park Avenue. Rev. W. I. Steans, pastor. 

Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church. — S. Main Avenue. Rev. 
R. Faulk Jones, pastor. 

Welsh Congregational Church. — W. Market, above Brick Ave- 
nue. Rev. R. S. Jones, pastor. 

Welsh Congregational Church. — S. Main Avenue. Rev. Lot 
Lake, pastor, 

Zion Lutheran Church (German). — Mifflin Avenue, Rev. P. F. 
Zitzelmann, pastor. 

The total sittings of the chui-ches in Scranton approximate to 
thirty-five or forty thousand persons, while the membership is 
considerably less. 

OUR SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

The public and private school institutions are thorough and 
complete. In the city there ai'e thirty public school buildings, 
with a seating capacity of seven thousand nine hundred and 
twenty, all erected at a cost of $332,000, including the value of 
the lots upon which they stand. Two hundred and five teachers 
are employed at a total salary of $8009 per year, or about $40 
per month. In 1879 there were five thousand four hundred and 
forty-eight scholars upon the rolls, while in 1884: there were 
seven thousand five hundred and eighty-three, with an average 
attendance of six thousand seven hundred and seven. In the 
case of school attendance the increase exhibits the very rapid 



APPENDIX. 449 

growth of the city in population during the five years. In no 
department is the permanent prosperity of a locality mo-e dis- 
tinctly located. 

HEALTH OP THE VALLEY. 

The general health of Scranton is excellent. Located seven 
hundred and fifty feet above the level of the sea, surrounded 
by mountains two thousand feet high, it enjoys the advantages 
of an invigorating atmosphere, pure water, and ample drainage, 
and yet eighty physicians manage to sustain an indifferent degree 
of thrift and prosperity. Epidemics and endemics, such diseases 
as distract our seaboard cities, are unknown, while typhoid fever 
is rai"ely seen in the valley. Pulmonary troubles are not indig- 
enous. Unless inherited and brought in the system from some 
other section of country, it is rare to see a case of consumption 
among us. Sheltered by the Moosic Mountains upon either side 
from the cold winds of March and December, the Lackawanna 
Valley, with its genial air and its coal-mines, aff'ords to th )se 
predisposed to phthisis the best prospect for hope, recuperat' n, 
and longevity of any known place. 

OUR CHARITIES. 

THE LACKAWANNA HOSPITAL. 

An institution originating solely through the agency of Dr. B. 
H. Throop, one of the oldest in Scranton, was incorporated in 
1871, and it has done and is still doing a vast amount of good to 
the poor, unfortunate occupants of the city. This year (1885) it 
received an appropriation of $15,000 from the State. Charles W. 
Roesler is president, E. C. Fuller treasurer, and N. D. Green sec- 
retary. 

THE MOSES TAYLOR HOSPITAL. 

Tlie Moses Taj'lor Hospital was the result of the thoughtful- 
ness and benevolence and means of that noble man whose name 
it bears. It was started in 1884. When completed, the maimed 
and suffering will have occasion to rejoice over the measures of 
relief aff'orded them through its instrumentalit3% Mrs. Payne, 
his liberal daughter, supplemented this generous gift by donat- 
ing $100,000 in addition. 
29 



450 



DEAF AND DUMB INSTITUTION. 



Scranton looks thoughtfully after the needs of the unfortu- 
nate children found within its precincts. Our young and talented 
senator, Hon. L. A. Watres, and his able assistants urged a bill 
through the Legislature in the spi-ing of 1885, appropriating 
$45,800 for the establishment in this city of an oral school for 
deaf-mutes. Governor Pattison, however, ignorant of every 
generous thought or impulse, vetoed the bill because he had the 
right to do so without the reason. The money thus appropriated 
was to have been used in the erection of suitable buildings for 
the maintenance of the school for two years. The oral system 
was to be taught in preference to the sign system used in all 
continental Europe except France. 

Progress has discovered a much better method, and, instead 
of the pantomimic action of the fingers, what is called the oral 
sj'stem has been introduced, by which words may be read and 
ideas communicated by the mere movement of the lips. 

The oral school for deaf-mutes was established in this city 
nearly two 3'ears ago, and since that time has been supported 
by private subscriptions on the part of the directors and others. 
But thirteen pupils are enrolled, as many mutes from this vicinity 
attend the institution for deaf-mutes in Philadelphia. According 
to the census there are in this section between eighty and one 
hundred deaf-mutes of school age. Applications for admission 
to the school have lately come from many places in the neigh- 
borhood, and one was received from Lynchburg, Va. The 
school-house is situated on the alley between Jefferson and 
Adams Avenues, near Vine Street. The building used is the 
first church building that was erected on the Scranton side of 
the river. It served as a place of woi-ship for many congrega- 
tions, and finally became the property of the German Methodists, 
who moved it on the rear end of their lot. The new building 
was to be erected on Washington Avenue, on the lot presented 
the directors by the Pennsylvania Coal Company. The lot con- 
sists of between four and five aci-es, and is pleasantly located. 

The directors of the school are as follows : Hon. Alfred Hand, 
President; Henry Belin, Jr., Secretary and Treasurer; William 
T. Smith, Eev. Moses Whitty, John B. Smith, William Connell. 
Fred. W. Gunster, E. J. Matthews, B. G. Morgan, Hon. L. A. 



Al>I'ENDIX. 451 

Watres, Rev. T. E. Beeber, Colonel E. H. Ripple, Charles H. 
Welles, Benjamin Hughes, J. C. Piatt, H. M. Boies, E. B. Sturges. 

HOME OF THE FRIENDLESS. 

Probablj" thei'e is no institution in Scranton or within tl^e 
State which is devoted to a theme so lofty and dear, a charity 
so broad and wholesome, as that of the Home of the Friendless, 
at which all look with a feeling of satisfaction and pride. It 
was chartered in 1873. Managed by liberal, self-sacrificing ladies, 
of whom Mrs. Thomas Moore seems the leading spirit, the rug- 
ged pathway of the lives of helpless children and women is 
rendered less rough and lonely by the zealous, silent work of 
these ladies. 

The following are the officers: Mrs. Jutnes Blair, President; 
Mrs. Greorge L. Dickson, Vice-President ; Mrs. Thomas Moore, 
Chief Manager ; Mrs. W. D. Kennedy, Eecording Secretary ; Mrs. 
C. P. Matthews, Corresponding Secretary ; Mrs. D. Langstatf, 
Treasurer; Managers: Mrs. A. E. Hunt, Mi-s. J. R. Fordham, 
Mis. C. B. Scott, Mrs. C. D. Simpson, Mrs. W. W. Winton, Mrs. 
E. S. Moffitt, Mrs. B. F. Fillmore, Mrs. W. H. Perkins, Mrs. S. N. 
Stetler, Mrs. Jas. P. Dickson, Mrs. L. B. Powell, Mrs. T. H. Dale, 
Mrs. 0. P. Clark, Mrs. Joseph Ober, Mrs. S. A. Brightman, Mrs. 
K. G. Judd, Mrs. R. W. Luce, Mrs. J. L. Stelle, Mrs. J. Genter, 
Mrs. H. A. Loveland, Mrs. Wm. Von Storch, Mrs. H. A. Masser, 
Mrs. A. Chamberlain, Mrs. Hendricks ; Auditors : Mrs. R. W. 
Luce, Mrs. Wm. Connell. 

Standing Committees. — Advisory Committee: Mr. H. A. Knapp, 
Mr. H. S. Pierce, Mr. James P. Dickson ; Members of Executive 
Committee: Mrs. W. W. Winton, Mrs. E. S. Moffitt; Committee 
on Finance: Mrs. C. B. Scott (Chairman), Mrs. H. A. Loveland, 
Mrs. Joseph Ober, Mrs. J. Genter, Mrs. O. P. Clark, Mrs. J. L. 
Stelle, Mrs. E. G. Judd, Mrs. J. R. Fordham, Mrs. W. H. Perkins, 
Mrs. C. D. Simpson, Mrs. B. F. Fillmore; Committee on Fuel: 
Mrs. R. W. Luce (Chairman), Mrs. S. N. Stetler, Mrs. A. Hen- 
dricks ; Committee on Repairs and Improvements: Mrs. James 
P. Dickson (Chairman), Mrs. A. E. Hunt, Mrs. h. B. Powell, 
Mrs. W. H. Perkins, Mrs. H. A. Masser. 

Assistant Manager, Mrs. S. A. Brightman ; Matron of Home, 
Mrs. Sarah E. Hopkins. 



452 APPENDIX. 



BOARD OF TRADE. 



Incorporated in 1871, this body has done very much to de- 
velop the latent resources of the valley in general and of Scran- 
ton in particular. With its indefatigable president, Colonel Price, 
it has given an impetus to various manufacturing industries, li 
has given importance to the huge piles of culm which disfigure 
our valley as a heating agent and as a fertilizer, and it has been 
the means of attracting a large amount of capital to this locality. 
It has made its resources and attractions known both at home 
and abroad. 

The following gentlemen are the officers : Colonel Gr. A. Price, 
President ; L. N. Kramer, Vice-President ; A. W. Dickson, Treas- 
urer; K. W. Luce, Secretary. 

Such men as H. S. Pierce, Judge Handley, Hand, Archbald, 
Hon. Lewis Pughe, Hon. Wm. R. Halstead, Hon. J. E. Barrett, 
Hon. L. A. Watres, Dr. Throop, John B. Smith, A. H. Yandling, 
Wm. Cornell, John Jermyn, Thos. Moore, Ed. Merrifield, E. N. 
Willard, W. H. Richmond, Ira Tripp, II. M. Bois, R. J. Matthews, 
J. C. Piatt, Colonel Ripple, Thos. Sanderson, B. Hughs, and nearlj- 
one hundred and fifty others, including the most prominent and 
enterprising men in the city, are enrolled as members. 

OUR WATER. 

One of the future problems of our coal region is the question 
of pure water for culinary and other purposes. Forty years 
ago the Lackawanna, stocked with trout, gave an ample supply 
of clear water to every human want; now it is the small, Ashless 
stream, unfit for any but sewerage purposes. Its corrosive char- 
acter will destroy the best boiler in a few months ; its filthy 
properties almost turn the beast away from it with thirst. 

Carbondale, Jermyn, Archbald, Jessup, Peckville, and Oly- 
phant all have water-works, but none of them can compare 
with the Providence or Scranton Water Companies in the purity 
or the abundance of water. 

The capacity of the Providence Water Company is three mil- 
lion gallons daily. The great reservoir or gravel-pond in South 
Abington, fed by the streams of those green uplands five hun- 
dred feet above Providence, gives ample pressure for conflagra- 



APPENDIX. 453 

tions and all other purposes. It is exempt from typhoid impuri- 
ties, without sediment, and non-corrosive. The main reservoir 
has a capacity of one hundred million i^allons, with a district 
reservoir of three million of gallons. Other reservoirs, already 
in view, can be constructed of almost utdimited capacity. 

On the Koaring Brook, some four miles from Scranton, a 
great substantial reservoir of this city is built, with a capac- 
ity of three hundred million of gallons daily. This brook, 
issuing from the springs of the Pocono, two thousand feet 
above tide-water, gives Scranton the purest water in the world. 
The reservoir yields tive million gallons daily, and holds two 
hundred million gallons, which can be increased to any amount 
required in future by the wants of the city. The waters of 
both companies come from beyond the coal measures, are free 
from all mineral impurities, and are superior for drinking or 
manufacturing purposes. 

THE LAKES OP THE COUNTY. 

Among the larger lakes in the county there are but three 
worthy of mention, — Paupack Lake, on Moosic Mountain, some- 
limes called Cobb's Pond or Moosic; Crystal Lake, between 
Carbondale and Dundaff; and Lily Lake, in North Abington. 
Paupack is the original Indian name. On the Wurts map of 
the valley of 1826 it is marked Paupack Pond. It is fed by 
springs, and gives rise to Paupack Creek, which develops into 
the Wallen-paupack (slow and swift water of the Indian), and, 
after running some thirty miles through three counties, empties 
into the Lackawanna at Hawley. 

Crystal and Lily Lakes are both favorite summer resorts, 
each having a hotel, and a small steamboat to give attraction 
to their waters. White lilies in great jirofusion and varieties 
are found on Lily Lake, which was formerly known as Wall's 
Pond. 

PRECIPICES. 

Of the cliflPs and ledges of Lackawanna Count}' and vicinity 
there are but few, viz., Barney's Ledge, Bali Mount, and 
Campbell's Ledge. 

Barney's Ledge, between Dunmore and Dunning, named from 
Barne}- Cary, who kept the toll-gate on Drinker's pike, at 



454 APPENDIX. 

Hunter's Eange, forty years ago, resembles Irving Cliff, in 
Honesdale, in height and appearance. This ledge has nothing 
to attract the eye of the visitor but an Indian spring bubbling 
up from the surface and full of legendry. 

Ball Mount, five miles westward from Scranton, in Newton 
township, rises many hundred feet from the surrounding coun- 
try, and affords to the eye a wide scope of territory. Shorn of 
its forest by heavy winds, the precipice for a long distance is 
comparatively bald. One large rock, perforated with holes of 
various capacities, was used by the Indians for grinding or 
pounding corn into samp for domestic use. This point will in 
time become a favorite resort for parties. 

Campbell's Ledge, at the junction of the Lackawanna with the 
Susquehanna Eiver, was named by a man who never saw its 
beauties or ti-od its borders. It is full of traditions, as will be 
seen by the illustration upon page 26, of white men, pursued by 
Indians, jumping off to escape, and of wild deer in droves hover- 
ing around its base. It has been made renowned by Campbell's 
" Grertrudc of Wyoming." Like the other ledges, it was prob- 
ably made by the action of water in the later period of the 
world's history. It is well worthy of a visit. 

BUILDING DEVELOPMENT. 

The Moosic Mountains bordering the Lackawanna were up- 
heaved previous to the carboniferous era, and belong to the 
igneous and early sandstone deposits. As a natural conse- 
quence, building material, composed of conglomerate, blue and 
white sandstone, is abundant and cheap. Nothing is equal to 
the rough beauty of the white sandstone found on the side of 
the mountain a mile west of Providence in great abundance and 
quarried at little cost. 

The building boom in Scranton has assumed gigantic propor- 
tions this year. In 1884, 1400 new buildings were erected, while 
this year this number will be largel}' increased. The new jail, 
the Moses Taylor Hospital, the Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciation building, the store building of John Jermyn, and hundreds 
of others are now in the course of erection. 

It is impossible to predict the future of Scranton. With its 
two mammoth and best-managed Bessemer steel-works in 



APPENDIX, 455 

America, its busy silk-worivs, its street railway ; with its nineteen 
newspapers, its $4,000,000 in bank subject to check, its scale, 
terra-cotta, and fire-brick for stoves ; its electric light, its internal 
revenue receipts of over $133,000, its factories, foundries, and 
furnaces ; its iron-, brass-, and glass-works, its button factory, its 
mills, and its countless industries that enliven capital and labor, 
it is bound to become one of the first cities of the Union. 

Scranton, by the momentum of her population, by the inevi- 
table operations of natural causes, is pushing up and down the 
valley with its building operations, and will, in the course of the 
next half-century, cover all the unoccupied territory. 

Fire department. 

About One hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars' worth ot 
property was destroyed by fire in Scranton during the year 
1884. This comparatively small sum would have been greater 
had it not been for the service of our efficient and voluntary fire 
department. The telephone and steam-gong announce the pi-es- 
ence of fires. Horses are kept in readiness at the engine-houses 
to move at the first signal of alarm. 

The entire force comprises three hundred and ninety men, 
divided into companies, as follows: 

NAMES OF COMPANIES AND MEMBERS OF EACH. 



Nay-aug Huse Company 40 

Franklin Fire Company 16 

Liberty Hose Company 23 

Crystal Hose Company 25 

Neptune Engine Company 30 

Relief Engine Company 27 

Phoenix Hose Company 32 

Niagara Hose Company 30 



Columbia Hose Company 35 

Gen. Phinney Engine Company Stii 

Eagle Engine Company ,, 26 

Excelsior Hose Company 40 

Invincible Hose Company 30 

Total 390. 



MAYORS AND THE JUDICIARY. 

From 1826 to 1834 there was but a single justice of the peace- 
in the valley between Pittston and Carbondale, and this one 
was Elisha S. Potter, whose small office stood in the village of 
Providence, now the First Ward in Scranton City. Before this, 
simple court, before whom no lawyer had ever appeared, lesa, 
than a dozen cases were tried each year. Theny.w.eiriQ.no national 



456 APPENDIX. 

jealousies nor prejudices then ; and the few white men scattered 
along the stream were all brothers, and the duties upon the farm 
demanded more attention from the good-natured settlers than 
useless litigation. 

Then came Esquire Fellows, Heermans, Slocum, Bristol, Pot- 
ter, Leach, Ward, Derby, Jay, Spencer, Koon, Von Storch, 
Miller, Collings, and many others prior to the development of 
Scranton into a place demanding a Mayor's Court. 

The first mayor of the city of Scranton was E. S. M. Hill, 
editor of the Scranton Register, who was elected in 1866 for three 
yeai-s ; the second was William N. Monies, elected in 1869 for 
three years ; the third was M. W. Loftus, elected in 1872 for 
three years ; the fourth was E. H. McKune, elected in 1875 for 
three years ; the fifth was T. V. Powderly, elected in 1878 for 
two years, re-elected in 1880 for two years, and again re-elected 
ill 1882 for two years; the sixth was F. A. Beamish, elected in 
1884 for two years. 

AV. G. Ward, a shrewd and able lawyer, was elected the first 
judge to preside over the Mayor's Court in October, 1870, and 
he entered upon the discharge of the duties of his office the 1st 
of December, 1870. He resigned, to take eff'ect the last day of 
November, 1875. 

His court lacked in dignity, but the good, honest sense and 
ways of the judge served the people well, and made him popular 
as a judge, and gave his court great character for fairness and 
impartialit}'. 

A single incident will illustrate the character of his court. 
In a commonwealth suit, where a woman was on trial for selling 
liquor without license, after one or two witnesses had been 
sworn upon each side, it was apparent to the judge that the 
woman was guilt}'. To save time he directed that the jury 
return such a verdict from the box. In passing a paper along 
for the juiymen to sign, one man shook his head and refused to 
sign such a verdict, but wished to retire and consult. The judge 
saw the hesitating juryman, and, raising and crossing his legs 
upon the table before him, exclaimed, "Wishes to retire and 
consult! Why, any juryman who fails to bring in a verdict of 
guilty under such evidence is guilty of perjury !" 

He was followed by Hon. W. H. Stanton, who filled the 



APPENDIX. 157 

position very creditably until he resigned his commission some 
three years afterwards. He is now pi-actising law and editing 
the Scranton Democrat. 

In 1874, Hon. John Handley was elected judge. He took 
his seat upon the bench in 1875, and served faithfully until his 
term expired in 1885. During the most critical and exciting 
period in the histor}^ of Scranton, Judge Handley presided with 
singular judicial grace and ability, and his rulings, covering 
thousands of cases, simple and intricate, were those dictated by 
sound sense, a clear perception of law and justice, and were 
considered fair to both sides. He retired from the bench with 
all the honors earned by the lamented Judge Mallory, Jessup, 
Conyngham, and Woodward, of old Luzerne, carrying with him 
the respect of the bar and the people without regard to politics. 
The time will come when he will be accorded by all men the 
place in the history of Scranton to which he is entitled as the 
foremost jurist that the county has ever produced. 

Bentlej' was appointed judge of Lackawanna County the 
2l8t of August, 1878, and organized his courts on the 2d of 
Sejnember, 1878, which he presided over until the 14th of 
October, 1878, when the Supreme Court decided he was acting 
without authority, and ordered a peremptory mandamus to 
Judges Harding, Handley, and Stanton to organize and open 
the courts in Lackawanna County, which they did on the 24th 
of October, 1878. 

Hon. Alfred Hand was elected judge of Lackawanna County 
in 1879. He went upon the bench in 1880. He weai"8 his 
judicial robes with honor, and for the last five years he has 
been acting in this capacity has fulfilled the expectations of his 
many friends. It is I'are to find a man to question his opinion 
as a thorough and lucid jurist. 

Hon. Egbert W. Archbat.d was elected judge in 1884, and 
was inducted upon the bench in 1885. He is a young man of 
promise, one of broad mind and liberal views, but he has had 
no time as yet to demonstrate his fitness for the position he 
fills; yet he is the son of a remarkable man, whose life was 
spent to benefit his fellow-man, and whose conduct and char- 
acter were such during a long life that the world where he was 
known felt a loss, at his death. 



^58 APPENDIX. 

The legal fraternity are repi'esented in Semnton to the 
number of seventy-six. 

OUR PHYSICIANS. 

Thirty-nine years ago, in 1846, there were but two doctors 
between Pittston and Carbondale, Dr. Silas B. Eobinson, who 
died in 1860, and the writer. Dr. Throop had I'emoved from 
Providence to Carbondale, where Dr. Thomas Sweet and Dr. Eaf- 
erty resided, while in Pittston Dr. Anson H. Curtis practised. 

Dr. Gideon Underwood, now of Pittston, was the first medicali 
man to locate in Scranton, in the summer of 1846, but as the 
town was too small and the practice too poor to support a, 
physician, he removed to Northmoreland, Wyoming County,, 
Pa. Dr. W. H. Pier settled in Hyde Park the same year. 
Since that time until now doctors have rushed into Scranton,. 
and at the present time there are eighty of them here. 

In 1855 a medical society, embracing the physicians of the- 
upper end of then Luzerne County, was formed in Scranton, 
with such able men as B. A. Bouton, A. Davis, Silas M.. Wheeler, 
Washington Gr. Nugent, and George W. Masser — all sleeping 
in the silent hills — as members. It dissolved in 1868. A 
few years since a new society, with the veteran Dr. Throop as 
president, sprang into being, and it bids fair to become an 
organization of mutual advantage both to the public and the 
profession. 

THE DELAWARE AND HUDSON CANAL COMPANY. 

This corporation belongs neither to New York nor Pennsyl-. 
vania. It was the joint product of both States, — a reciprocity 
of mutual interests. Who can estimate the impulse given to the 
city of New York by the introduction of anthracite upon the 
island of Manhattan by this company, and who would have 
fathomed the solitude of the Lackawanna if the moneyed men 
of this city had withheld the material aid whereby its coal de- 
velopment was inspired and hastened? Without the fuel-beds 
of Pennsylvania to respond to the demands of New York City, 
there would have been no right of way for canal or railroad 
solicited from the Keystone State by individuals able to con. 
ceive an enterprise that, with all their intellectual status, they 




DR. SII,AS B. ROBINSON. 



APPENDIX. 461 

■were unable to mature without the assistance of the more 
advanced and magnanimous capitalists of that city. 

Much of the brain-power was Pennsylvanian ; most of the 
money entering into the corporation, first and last, came from 
the Empire State. Thus conceived by men of one Slate and 
vitalized by those from another, much of its present manage- 
ment and inspiration comes from Pennsylvania. 

Maurice and William Wurts, occupying the frontispiece of 
early coal literature in the Lackawanna Valley, who educated the 
mountains to extend a warm hand to inland and seaboard cities 
everywhere, were Pennsylvanians. Thomas Dickson, late presi- 
dent of the company, who carved legible and lasting characters 
of success upon the growth and history of the corporation, al- 
though cradled among the Scottish hills, was claimed as a Penn- 
sylvanian in everything but birth ; while Pi-esident Olyphant 
and CoE F. Young, of Honesdale, General Manager; A. H. Vand- 
LiNG, of Scranton, Superintendent of the Coal Deparlmeni ; 
Joseph J. Albright, of Scranton, Sole Agent Southern and 
Western Department; R. Manville, Carbondale, Superintendent 
of the Eailroad Department; Edward W. Weston, Providence, 
General Agent of Real Estate Department ; Henry F. Athertdn. 
G-eneral Paymaster of the Pennsylvania Division; Asher M. 
Atkinson, Honesdale, Superintendent of the Canal Depart- 
ment; Jared M. Chittenden, of Scranton, General Outside 
Superintendent of Coal Breakers ; E. R. Peckens, of Plymouth, 
Assistant Outside Superintendent; Chris, and Ed. Scharar and 
Andrew Nichols, Mining Engineers, are all Pennsylvanians by 
birth, with two exceptions, and it would be folly to question the 
wholesome qualifications of these gentlemen, or the executive 
ability with which their respective departments at the coal- 
producing terminus of the company are managed year after 
year. 

In a broader sense than mere local pride, it matters little 
which commonwealth preponderates in coal or capital as long 
as both States share advantageously by the union. 

This organization finds no parallel in America. It stands 
alone. No other association of men so clearly illustrates what 
harmonious capital and labor can accomplish as does this. The 
first one in America that introduced and then abandoned a loco- 



402 APPENDIX. 

motive, the second one ever constructed upon the continent, it 
has in its development excited jealousy and admiration, range 
praise and open hostility, while it ever and always paid dollar 
for dollar, inaugurated the system* of monthly cash payments, 
and maintained its high character for fairness and good faith in 
dealing with its employes and the public that was established 
by the managers of the company at its inception. 

In 1826, when the corporation was sadly embarrassed, the 
State of New York, impelled by the wise policy which had 
given character to the administration of Governor De Witt 
Clinton, loaned its credit to the company for $500,000. When 
this became due, principal and interest were paid promptly, and 
this instance is recorded as the only one where indebtedness to 
the State was thus ever paid. 

According to Mine Inspector Blewitt's annual report for 1884, 
this compan}' operate sixteen collieries, emplo}^ 4291 men, and 
mined and carried to market last year 1,624,444 tons of anthra- 
cite. Its main office is in Scranton. 

COAL WASTE AND COAL-BREAKERS. 

No old resident of the coal region can forget the time when 
no other kind of coal was seen or sold but lump coal. The 
miner or laborer, immured in his lengthened chamber, with pick 
and drill, broke up the larger lumps in the mine simply to facili- 
tate easier loading into mine cars. In this form anthracite was 
carried to market, and broken only as it was used, without 
waste. Until within corapai'atively a short period no prepared 
coal found its way into recognition and use. Each piece was 
fractured by hand with the same patient labor that wood, drawn 
from the forest in logs, required repeated strokes from the axe- 
man to fit it for the fireplace. 

One of the greatest conspirators of modern times against 
economy is that invention of the devil known as a coal-breaker, 
an institution that inaugurated a system of waste and loss of 
anthracite beyond repair and almost beyond measure. When 
posterity contemplates the flattened hills and culm-filled valleys 
a century hence, this enemy will be taunted as the great robber 
of the continent. 

It was a disastrous day for all anthracite regions when com- 



APPENDIX. 463 

peiing coal men assented to waste a third part of the coal by 
breaking and screening it, for the sake of saving the remaining 
two liirds in a prepared form. The eruptions of culm piles, 
heightened into pyramids, all formed of the purest coal, around 
every breaker from Carbondale to Nanticoke, exhibit the cer- 
tainty and rapidity with which our streams are being choked 
and our mountains turned wrong side out by a process alike 
exhausting and wasteful. True, it oflfers its advantages to the 
indolent consumer, but how fatal to the interior and exterior 
of our unresisting hills and valleys! 

The actual loss in coal while the iron teeth and tireless jaws 
of the breakers subdue lumps into ordinary stove coal has been 
estimated by Daddow at 20 to 25 per cent. Some estimate the 
waste at 30 per cent., and some lower. Colonel Price, who has 
given the subject great attention, fixes the percentage at 20 per 
cent. 

The total output of the four great companies mining coal in 
the Lackawanna Valley being 146,218,150 tons, would exhibit a 
total loss of 29,243,630 tons of culm deposit. This estimate is 
too small according to more competent judges. Jared M. Chit- 
tenden, a gentleman who was born in Mount Pleasant in 1823, 
and whose unquestioned good judgment and official position in the 
Delaware and Hudson Canal Company cause him to be regarded 
iis the best judge in the Northern Coal-Field, has investigated 
this matter for a lifetime. After the most careful reseai'ch, 
he found the volume of loss in coal while preparing it b}^ the 
usual grinding or breaking process to be precisely 29^ per cent., 
or about one-third of its real weight. 

This appalling amount is a total loss to coal territory, to all 
companies engaged in its production, and to the world at large. 
Before half of the coal owned by companies in the valley is 
mined, the culm piles, which ah'eady smother villages and cities 
along the Lackawanna, will close up the valley with ground 
coal, and obliterate the fair vale from the sight of coming gen- 
•erations. 

Within the Schuylkill, Lehigh, Lykens, Wyoming, and Lack- 
awanna coal area lies sufficient culm to pay the national debt 
if it could be utilized with judgment and economy. 

Within a radius of three miles of the Scranton court-house 



464 APPENDIX. 

are two liundre(] and fifty boilers where steam is generated ex- 
clusively from culm for power purposes. The manufactureis 
save at least $25,000 each month in this manner. Still, in 
spite of this, 6000 tons of the purest coal are wasted every day in 
the year, and thousands of tons accumulated in culm dumps. 

The false economy of breaking up coal by machinery began 
under the auspices of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western 
Compan}', in Scranton, in 1852. 

The first annual report of this company, made in January, 
1854, says ''that during the present year the steam-power coal- 
breaker at Diamond mines has been completed, the influence ot 
which will be stated hereafter." Some years later a coal-breaker 
rose from the mines of the Delaware and Hudson Company. In 
1855 the Von Storch lands in Providence were leased by Piltston 
jTien. In 1857 a company was organized, who sank the Von 
Storch shaft and erected a steam coal-breaker, with a view of 
sending coal over the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western 
Railway. 

These Von Storch lands were desired by Maurice and William 
Wurts when first exploring the valley for coal. Could these 
gentlemen, in 1812-15, have purchased this rich tract as they 
aimed to do, opened mines, sought Cobb's instead of Eix's Gap 
for an outlet, tenanted the unploughed acres by encouraging and 
developing a manufacturing town, there would have been no 
Carbondale or Honesdale, and the forests then standing upon 
their sites might yet have rung with the merry notes of wild 
turkeys and singing birds. 

In 1857 this shaft fell into the hands of the Delaware and 
Hudson Company, and the breaker removed to the river, half a 
mile away, where it ran until 1874. In this year, after masti- 
cating some 2,000,000 tons of coal and leaving its Alpine mark 
between Providence and Scranton, it was removed to make room 
for a new one of greater capacit}^ and greedier proportions. 

William P. Miner, editor of the weekly Wilkes Barre Record, 
was the first man in the countiy to direct attention to this and 
other destructive features of the coal trade, in 1855, in an able 
and earnest editorial. 

No man in the country has given more thought and attention 
to the study of coal waste than Col. J. A. Price, of Scranton. 



APPKNDIX. 465 

He proposes by dry steam and a proportionate quantity of air 
to employ culm as a heating agent. 

He says, " The construction of the apparatus is very simple. 
It consists of a closed ash-pit, into which one end of funnel or 
cone-shaped pipe is inserted, the larger end being upon the out- 
side. At the mouth of the cone is placed a steam jet, which 
when turned on directs its volume to the neck of the cone, and 
the tendency of the steam to spray as it leaves the jet orifice 
carries with it a large quantity of atmosphere. The air, passing 
through the fire, is drawn by the chimnej'-suction, being assisted 
by the steam-blast pressure, and thus su])ports combustion, while 
at the same time the steam passes with it, is decomposed in 
passing through the fire-bed, and resolved into its original ele- 
ments of hydrogen and oxygen, both powerful adjuncts of com- 
bustion. The hydrogen gas, the most powerful of the heat 
generating elements which is formed, is exploded at the surface, 
and the oxygen unites in the oi-dinary manner with the carbon, 
altogether producing a fierce cutting temperature in the fire-box." 

A large number of gentlemen engaged in the manufacturing 
business have given favorable testimonials to the colonel's plan 
of utilizing culm as a heating agent; but even if it can be used 
to a considerable extent as a fertilizer or a generator of steam, 
the naked fact is still apparent that the present generation, 
while preparing coal, is robbing succeeding ones of nearly one- 
third of the value of the products of our mountains and valleys 
without disturbing us in the least. 

HENRY ROBERTS, M.D. 

Dr. Eoberts was born in Wyoming County, Pa., in 1820, read 
medicine, and began practice in Lacyville. He soon after re- 
moved to Providence. In 1857 he ran and was defeated for the 
Legislature. 

In 1859 he visited California, and while en route a thousancJ 
miles beyond the Missouri he lost the use of his right arm by 
the accidental discharge of a gun. After his recovery he visited 
for six months various places in California before he returned to 
Providence in 1861. During the invasion of the State in 1863 
he enrolled a company of men in twent3'-four hours, accom- 
panying them to Harrisburg as volunteer surgeon. In April of 
30 



466 APPENDIX. 

tho same year he was appointed one of the Examining Surgeons, 
a position he held for twent}^ years. In 1868 was elected a 
member of the Select Council of Scranton, and for nine consecu- 
tive years was re-elected. In April, 1868, was appointed post- 
mastev of Providence, and was only removed in 1884, after the 
city of Scranton had practised the game of Jonah on the whale 
in Providence. 

Dr. Eoberts is regarded as a man of excellent judgment, and 
he stands high as a physician and as a man. 

HON. LEWIS PUGHE. 

The city of Carbondale has contributed many of its best busi- 
ness-men to the growth and development of Scranton within the 
last three decades, — the late Colonel Monies and Joseph Gillispie, 
two energetic men, William H. Eichmond, of the Hillside Farm, 
Notary Public John M. Poor, Horatio S. Pierce, the successful 
banker, — but none of them have been brought more pi"ominently 
before the public than Mr. Pughe. 

Truth, a most able newspaper, published in Scranton by Hon. 
John E. Barrett, paid the following tribute to this prominent 
stove manufacturer : 

" The Hon. Lewis Pughe, who was recently the recipient of 
numerous congratulations on the celebration of his sixty-fifth 
birthday, is a happy illustration of the self-made man Avho owes 
his success to honest industry and careful business management. 
He was born in North Wales in 1820, and came to this country 
in 1844, when he settled in Carbondale, the pioneer city of the 
Lackawanna Valley, of which he had the honor of being elected 
first city treasurer, and subsequently alderman and associate 
judge of the Mayor's Court. A valuable tribute to his popu- 
larity with all classes was his election as a Eepublican to the 
Pennsylvania Legislature in the year 1859, at a time when the 
district comprised the entire county of Luzerne, with a Demo- 
ci-atic majority of over 2500. In 1867 he became a resident of 
Scranton, and a partner in the well-known and eminently suc- 
cessful firm of Monies & Pughe. In the year 1872 he was 
elected a member of the Pennsylvania Constitutional Conven- 
tion, and in that body was generally esteemed by his associates 
for his fine social qualities, as well as for his comprehensive 




LEWIS PUGHE. 



APPENDIX. 469 

views on all public questions, and the thorough knowledge of 
the needs of the people, which he brought to the consideration 
of all the important provisions which now form the organic law 
of the State. It was in that convention that the way was paved 
for the creation of a new county, and to the earnest labors and 
convincing arguments of Lewis Pughe in resisting propositions 
which, if adopted, would prove fatal to the project and prevent 
the necessary legislation, the people of this valley are indebted 
for the existence to-day of the flourishing county of Lacka- 
wanna, with its capital in this city. All the power of Wilkes 
Barre was directed against such a measure at the outset. But 
when the late Chief-Justice Woodward, who was a member of 
the convention, listened to Mr. Pughe's convincing argument, 
bristling with statistics showing the wonderful resources that 
made old Luzerne an empire in itself, he was so well pleased, 
and so deeply impressed with the gi-and tribute paid to the 
county's greatness, that he immediately declared to Mr. Pughe 
ihat he would not interpose any obstacle that might prevent the 
division of the county. Mr. Pughe was one of the Presidential 
elector.s on the Hayes and Wheeler ticket in 1876. He was one 
of the originators of the Scranton Board of Trade, and to his 
efforts the Scranton Poor District is indebted for the wholesome 
reforms which have made the Hillside Farm the model institu- 
tion of its kind in the State. His recent election to the Board 
of Health gives promise of needed reforms in that body. What- 
ever he undertakes to do he believes in doing thoroughly, and 
as he is still active, mentally and phj'sically, it is right to pre- 
dict for him many years of usefulness. Mr. Pughe takes a deep 
interest in educational as well as charitable matters. He was a 
school director in Carbondale ibr ten 3-ears ; was a member of 
the board of the old Fourth District, this city, and i-ecently 
served a term on the Scranton School Board, where ho was a 
valued and progressive member. He is president and one of the 
largest stockholders of the Pittston Stove Company, one of the 
most successful manufacturing establishments of its kind in the 
country, with a capital of $100,000. Mr. Pughe's nature is 
cosmopolitan, and he knows neither sect, creed, nor luitionality 
in doing good." 



470 APPENDIX. 



THE STRIKES. 

Throughout the entire Northern Coal-Field mining was sus- 
pended from the middle of May, 1869, to the middle of Septem- 
ber. If the good effects of the war in stimulating the extraor- 
dinary yet artificial demands for coal that it did, and beguiling 
unneeded labor to the coal-fields that now creates its own em- 
barrassment, were once acknowledged by all, then it must be 
confessed that whatever apparent advantage was gained b}'- its 
existence at the time has been thrice counterbalanced- by subse- 
quent strikes, stops, and suspensions that have followed each 
other, and that must inevitably follow while the means for pro- 
ducing coal are so far in excess of its demands and consumption. 

About the first of December, 1870, all the coal-producing com- 
panies of this region ordered a reduction of wages. This resulted 
in a strike known as the long strike, whose baneful influence 
still shadows bankrupt merchants with hopeless indebtedness as 
a reward for trusting in credit. All mines but private ones for 
local trade were idle and silent. The immediate cause of the 
strike was the reduction of wages of miners and laborers; the 
remote cause, the great excess of mine labor. The plain truth is, 
that for the amount of coal now demanded there are, by far, too 
many miners and too many mines for its production. 

When the fresh agricultural grounds of the West or the warmer 
acres of the South invite the personal and permanent attention 
of at least one-third of our miners and laborers, the remainder 
can find remunerative employment, and prosperity will then, 
and not till then, return to enrich and enliven the banks of the 
Lackawanna. 

The system of suspension inaugurated in 1869 by the miners, 
whose association embraced the entire anthracite region, for the 
avowed purpose of curtailing the production, was alike disas- 
trous to coal companies, to the miner, and to the consumer. 

The only safe remedy for over-production is the natural law 
of trade, and to mine no more coal than can be readily sold and 
consumed, for coal is a necessitj' rather than a luxury. 

Concessions were made upon each side and work resumed in 
the mines upon terms considered more favorable to the miners 
than before. 



• Al'l'KNDlX. 471 

The great excess of mine labor and other causes made itself 
felt beyond precedent in 1877. It resulted in the greatest sus- 
pension on record among us. 

At noon, July 23, the employes of the rolling-mills, steel- 
works, and machine-shops of the Lackawanna Iron and Coal 
Company discontinued work and made a demand for an increase 
of 25 per cent, on their wages. In the afternoon the firemen 
employed by the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad 
and the engineers in the yard made a demand on Superintendent 
Halstead, which not being complied with, the engines were run 
into the round-house and the men ceased work. 

On the arrival of the morning train on the Delaware, Lack- 
awanna and Western road, July 24, a committee of the firemen 
detached the passenger cars from the mail and express cars, and 
then informed Mr. Halstead that the mail and express cars could 
go thi-ough. Mr. Halstead informed them that the entire train 
must go or none at all. 

During the day the trains on all the roads leading into the 
city were discontinued. On the 25th a committee from the mine 
employes made a demand for an increase of 25 per cent, of wages. 
The excitement in the valley and adjacent coal-fields began to be 
intense. Kobert H. McKune was mayor of the city of Scranton, 
and upon iiim all parties looked for relief and safety. 

Samuel Sloan, President of the Delaware, Lackawanna and 
Western Railway ; Thomas Dickson, President of the Delaware 
and Hudson Canal Company ; W. W. Scranton, General Mana- 
ger of the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company; W. R. Storrs, 
General Coal Agent for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western 
Railway ; and F. S. Lathrop, Receiver of the Central Road of New 
Jersey, all importuned the mayor by telegraph or letter for the 
pi'otection of property they respectively represented, while he 
was engaged in consulting Governor Hartranft, Colonel Osborne^ 
and others in authority, for assistance and for a solution of the 
increasing trouble. 

Idleness in the valley was supreme. It was a long, dull Sab- 
bath day. No coal trains, no men at work, little business, and 
no confidence; merchants, men, and operators were impover- 
ished, trade stood still, and all parties suffered. July 26, Gov- 
ernor Hartranft having made a request for United States troops, 



472 APPENDIX. 

the President issued a proclamation ordering General Hancock 
to furnish them. During the day a meeting of Ihe mine em- 
ployes was held at the Eound Woods, in the lower western limits 
of the city. The shops of the Delaware, Lackawanna and West- 
ern Railroad Company were all idle. Strong men doing nothing, 
many of them strangers, loitered along the streets with no defi- 
nite object in view. On the morning of the 29th a head-house. 
No. 5, on the Pennsylvania Coal Company, was burned by an 
incendiary. A bridge on the line was also burned, thus render- 
ing this road from Pittston to Hawley inoperative, and debarred 
the shipment of 30,000 tons of coal per week. The idle mines 
were being flooded, and the outlook was gloomy and ominous. 

On the next morning, July 30, the mayor sent for the execu- 
tive committee of the firemen and informed them that he had 
determined that if Mr. Halstead had men to run a train to New 
York, one should leave the city that afternoon ; that he so far 
had refused military aid that had been proffered, and he hoped 
that he would not have to call upon troops to protect the trains. 
A meeting of the firemen was held at two o'clock, at which this 
proposition was made known and discussed, and by a decided 
vote it was resolved to resume work after a seven days' suspen- 
sion. The miners and shop hands still stood out. 

John Brisbin, who died February, 1880, was the only promi- 
nent man in the valley who had the entire confidence of the 
miners, men, and the corporations. He had the singular faculty 
of making everybody his friend. He believed that the miners 
had rights equally to be respected with those of the company 
he represented. 

The committee, of mine employes appointed at the Round 
Woods meeting chose Mr. Brisbin, whom they met at Mayor 
McKune's office, as arbitrator, where, after discussing their differ- 
ences for two hours, an agreement satisfactory to both parties 
was concluded. 

A full statement of their grievances was made by the com- 
mittee ; the discussion was carried on in the most cordial man- 
ner, and at the breaking up of the conference the committee 
cordially thanked Mr. Brisbin for the fair and manlj' course he 
had acted towards them. 

When the conference broke up the best of feeling prevailed 



APPENDIX. 47;i 

upon both sides. When the result was announced upon the 
streets every one was happy, and the mayor was heartily con- 
gratulated upon the results of the good work. 

Early on the morning of August 1 the streets leading to the 
silk-works were filled by miners and others going to the meeting 
called at this point. Six thousand persons were present, incen- 
diary speeches were made, and it was resolved to stop by force 
the various works of the machine-shops, furnaces, and foundries 
at once. 

At this time Mayor McKune appeared upon the streets. As 
he reached the corner of Lackawanna and Washington Avenues 
he was met by a messenger from Mr. McKinney, the foreman of 
the railroad car-shop, asking for his presence at the office. He 
and his friends then went in that direction. The whole space 
from the office to the main railroad tracks was filled by at 
least five thousand persons, who were going through the shops, 
driving away the few who were willing to work. As the mayor, 
on his return, was opposite the main entrance of the shop the 
angry crowd was emerging. Around him quite a multitude had 
gathered. The leader of the gang cried out, " Who is it ?" 
"The maj'or," some one replied. The leader then shouted out, 
"Kill him! He has no business here!" Immediately several 
pistol-shots w^ere fired, and the mayor was struck in the back 
with a club, which caused the blood to spurt from his mouth, 
and was also hit by a number of stones. He was prompth' sur- 
rounded by workingmen, who strove earnestly for his safety. 
They were nearly overpowered, when the Rev. Father Dunn, 
of St. Vincent's Cathedral, arrived upon the scene, who, taking 
the arm of the mayor, proceeded towards Washington Avenue. 
They had gone but a few steps when a man jumped in front of 
McKune, struck him a severe blow with a slung-shot, breaking 
his upper jaw and fracturing the roof of his mouth. By this 
time the excited crowd overpowered those in the rear and 
rushed upon the unarmed mayor. A portion of it caught up 
Father Dunn, and carried him away from the scene of conflict. 

In the mean time the maj'or passed under the railroad culvert. 
On arriving at the corner of Lackawanna Avenue he was met 
by some of the posse that had been organized at the commence- 
ment of the strike, and for whom he had sent when first at- 



474 APPENDIX. 

tacked. They were coming to his assistance. He beckoned to 
them to come on. He intended to make a stand at his office, 
two blocks down the street. As he turned to go down the 
avenue he was struck a blow on the head b}^ a hammer, which 
for some minutes rendered hira unconscious. He was carried 
by his police into the Merchants' Bank, where he regained 
consciousness soon after. 

In the mean time the pursuing populace was following the 
avenue, and began an attack on the armed posse that had 
issued from the company's store. A few shots were fired over 
the heads of the crowd for the purpose of intimidating it, but it 
failed to do so. When the posse had reached the corner of 
Washington Avenue it halted and formed. Pistol-shots were 
fired by the crowd, wounding Sheriff Bortree and Carl McKin- 
ney. Orders were now given to fire. The company wheeled, 
and out of forty muskets flashed the fatal bullets. Some aimed 
over the crowd, others fired into it, killing four and wounding 
a number of others. 

This unexpected shot dispersed the people in every direction, 
but volley after volley was fired until the streets were clear. 

The scene of conflict presented a warlike spectacle. On the 
corner of the street lay a man with the top of his head blown 
off", and his brains and blood reddened the sidewalk, while three 
others in the middle of the street were struggling in the last 
agonies of death, and the wounded were being carried homo 
or into di'ug-stores by their friends. 

About two o'clock crowds again began to assemble on Lack- 
awanna Avenue. The report had gone out that the mayor had 
been killed, and that no other person was qualified to direct and 
control the posse. He, however, in company with Colonel Eip- 
ple, at the head of the police and a detachment of the halt- 
organized squad, marched down the avenue, and cleared the 
streets of people. 

Early the next moi'ning. General Brinton, with three thou- 
sand troops, arrived from Pittsburg, and were stationed here for 
several weeks. The presence of this force insured order and 
safety to persons and property that was salutary upon all sides. 

Mayor McKune, maltreated by persons who sought his life 
simply because he was mayor and nothing else, discharged his 



APPENDIX. 477 

duties faithfully and fearlessly during this ci*itieal and exciting 
episode in the history of Scranton, as tiie testimonials of thou- 
sands of the citizens gave hiiu written assurance afterwards. 

For several weeks after this laiuentablc occurrence in Scran- 
ton, idle men gathered in groups and discussed the situation, de- 
ploring the affray of August 1, while in the lower end of Luzerne 
County, at Wilkes Barre, Plymouth, antl Nunticoke, the vexed 
question of capital and labor was dangerously discussed for a 
time. The presence of the militia, followed by regular troops, 
stationed in Providence for a month, brought wiser counsels to 
bear in this region, and from that time until now have produced 
those harmonious relations between the workingmen and their 
employers that now happily exist. 

THE THIRTEENTH REGIMENT. 

The long strike, while it accomplished no real good to any- 
body, and defined no policy for future agencies, brought into 
being the Thirteenth Eegiraent Infantry, Third Brigade, Na- 
tional Guards. The genius of our people is not militarj^ and 
nothing but the necessity of military' power, made apparent by 
the events in the summer of 1877, developed this regiment. 

On the 14th day of August of this year the Scranton City 
Guards were organized by the union of Company A, Captain 
Bryson ; Company B, Captain S. C. Mei-rian ; Company C, Caj)- 
tain H. A. Courson ; Company D, Captain E. H. Eipple, under the 
command of Major H. M. Boies and Adjutant F. L. Hitchcock. 

In October, 1878, the regiment was organized upon the foun- 
dation offered by the battalion of the Scranton City Guards. 

The original officers of the I'egiment were : 

Field and Staff. — Major H. M. Boies, Commandant; First 
Lieutenant F. L. Hitchcock, Adjutant; Captain H. A. Kinngs- 
burry, Commissary. 

Won- Commissioned Staff. — H. N. Bunnell, Sergeant-Major ; S. 
G. Kerr, Quartermaster-Sergeant; G. H. Madox, Commissary- 
Sergeant ; W. W. Ives, Hospital Steward ; M. D. Smith and 
Edward Brady, Principal Musicians ; and John J. Coleman, Bat- 
talion Clerk. 

Line Officers. 

Company A. — Captain, A. Bryson, Jr.; First Lieutenants, D. 



478 APPENDIX 

Bartholomew, H. A. Knapp ; Second Lieutenant, William Kel- 
iow. 

Company C. — Captain, A. H. Courson ; First Lieutenant, J. E. 
Brown ; Second Lieutenant, L. A. Watres. 

Company D. — Captain, E. H. Ripple ; First Lieutenant, J. A. 
Linen ; Second Lieutenant, Samuel Hines. 

Subsequently other companies were added to the battalion, 
which was then organized into a regiment, composed of young 
men of Scranton, Stroudsbui'g, Honesdale, and Factoryville, 
whose character for sobriety, integrity, and every manly element 
compares favorably with any other regiment within the State. 
The regiment went into camp for instructions and drill at Long 
Branch, N. J., in August, 1879, and in Lebanon, in July, 1885, 
for seven days, where its appearance and demeanor were highly 
commended by all. At two inaugurations it has appeared in 
Washington, eliciting admiration by its soldierly bearing and its 
gentlemanly deportment. The following are the officers : 

Field and Staff. — Colonel, F. L. Hitchcock ; Lieutenant-Colonel, 

E. H. Eipple ; Major, H. A. Coursen ; Adjutant, C. C. Mattes ; 
Quartermaster, John P. Albro ; Surgeon, H. V. Logan, M.D. ; 
Assistant Surgeons, A. J. Connell, M.D., C. L. Frey, M.D. 

Non- Commissioned Staff. — Sergeant-Major, E. J. Dimmick; 
•Quartermaster-Sergeant, A. P. Bradford ; Commissary-Sergeant, 
L. M. Horton ; Hospital Steward, Edward Evans. 

Line Offieers. 
Company A. — Captain, L. A. Watres; First Lieutenant, George 

F. Barnard; Second Lieutenant, M. J. Andrews. 

Company B. — Captain, William Kellow ; First Lieutenant, H. 
R. Madison ; Second Lieutenant, W. S. Millar. 

Company C. — Captain, James Moir; First Lieutenant, AVilliam 
B. Henwood ; Second Lieutenant, Charles W. Grunster. 

Company D. — Captain, George B. Thompson ; First Lieutenant, 
William A. May ; Second Lieutenant, 

Company E (Honesdale). — Captain, Henry Wilson ; First Lieu- 
tenant, W. H. Stanton. 

Company F. — Captain, Roger L. Burnett. 

Company G (Factoryville). — Captain, Charles W. Dopuj- ; First 
Lieutenant, E. 0. Smith : Second Lieutenant, Abel D. Gardner. 



APPENDIX. 479 

Company i? (Providence). — Captain, J. B. Fish; First Lieu- 
tenant, W. B. Eockwell ; Second Lieutenant, Charles T. Weston, 

Company I. — Captain Burke, of Parnell Guards. 

A large armory has been erected in Scranton for its accom- 
modation. 

Company H, Captain J. B. Fish, of Providence, has also built 
a substantial stone armory in the Second Ward, for the use of 
the company and for public purposes. 

AN INDUSTRIAL POINT. 

Scranton is one of the best industrial centres in America. It 
18 a great railroad centre. Over sixty trains a day come and 
go over the roads passing through it, carrying at least one 
thousand passengers, — the Delaware, Lackawanna and West- 
ern, the Brie Eailway, the Philadelphia and Reading Company, 
and the Delaware and Hudson. The Lehigh Valley and the 
Pennsylvania Eailroad are already making towards the valley, 
and are within a few miles of the centre of the locality. The 
Pennsylvania Coal Company and the Bloomsburg Branch of 
the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western road may be men- 
tioned. 

While the Delaware, Lackavvanna and Western is one of the 
best constructed roads in the United States, it is also the shortest 
route between New York and Buffalo, being 44 miles shorter 
than the Lehigh Valley, 31 miles shorter than the New York 
Centi-al, and 14 miles shorter than the Erie. Nearly half a 
million of persons a year arrive and depart from its railroad 
depot. 

This magnificently-equipped road of four hundred and nine 
miles of double track, reaching from the lakes to the sea, man- 
aged with singular abilit}- and success by its president, Hon. 
Samuel Sloan, and his able and judicious superintendent, W. 
F. Halstead, gave the first impulse to Scranton as a village in 
1856, and now fosters and gives greater encouragement and 
vitality to the business interests than any other factor operating 
here. Its army of fifteen thousand men, along the main line and 
branches, and all others, all attest to the excellence of its general 
management. 

Three of these companies pay out over twelve million of dol- 



480 APPENDIX. 

lars per year, besides vast sums of money being paid by its 
other business interests. About forty thousand tons of anthra- 
cite are mined and shipped each week from this vicinity, aggre- 
gating some 12,000,000 tons as the output for this year, thus 
illustrating the impoi-tance of Scranton as a great business 
centre. 

This company has twenty-one collieries, employing 6086 men, 
and mined in 1884, 2,025,530 tons of coal. 

Over one hundred million pounds of freight come to this city 
over three railroads every month, while about thirty million 
pounds of freight are dispatched from here. 

Our railroad facilities place us within five hours' ride of New 
York or Philadelphia, within eight hours of Buffalo and Os- 
wego and Saratoga, and within ten hours of the capital of the 
country, indicating how accessible we are to the great business 
and fashionable world, and to the best markets in America ; so 
that our own markets can be stocked with the eai'ly luxuries of 
the South, while the late productions of the colder North, with 
every variety offish from the sea and the rivers of the South as 
well as from the lakes and streams of the North, with all the 
outcome of Eastern manufacturers and the growth of our 
Western prairies. 

Aside from the millions invested in Scranton by the various 
railroads and coal intei-ests, over twent}^ millions are employed 
in manufacturing interests. 

THK INDU.sTRIKS OP SCEANTON. 

THK DICKS >N MANUFACTURING COMPANY. 

Early in 1855 the anthracite coal business of the Lackawanna 
Valley had assumed such proportions that it was deemed neces- 
sary that a shop for repairing mining machinery and doing what 
little new work was needed should be started in the then 
southern portion of the Lackawanna coal region ; and conse- 
quently, in February, 1856, Thomas, John A., and George L. 
Dickson, Maurice and Charles P. Wurts, Joseph, Benjamin, and 
C. T. Pierson, came to Scranton from Carbondale, and began the 
erection of foundry and machine-shops, under the name of 
" Dickson & Co.," and in May of the same year ran the first 



APPENDIX. 481 

heat of iron in their foundry, the amount melted being about 
two tons. They started with about thirty men, the greater 
number of which were employed in the foundry. They also 
had a machine-shop and small blacksmith-shop. The first few 
yeai-8 of the business were not very encouraging, and the com- 
plement of men remained about the same, with an average 
monthly pay-roll of about $1200. A small boiler-shop was soon 
added to the works, but this increased the number of men only 
by about three, most of the work in that department being 
repairs for coal-works. Notwithstanding the depression of 1857, 
the works managed to keep in operation, and were enlarged 
from time to time. 

In 1862 the company was incorporated under the name of 
The Dickson Manufacturing Company, with an actual capital of 
$150,000, and an authorized capital of $300,000. The first offi- 
cers of the company were : President, Thomas Dickson ; Secre- 
tary and Treasurer, George L. Dickson ; Master Mechanic, John 
A. Dickson. The number of men employed the first year, i.e., 
1862, was about 150; the average daily melting of iron, three 
tons ; monthly pay-roll, about $7500; and the sales for the fii'st 
year were $200,000. 

As the output of anthracite coal increased, the business of the 
company increased with it, and in 1862 they purchased of 
Messrs. Cooke and Co. the locomotive-shops known as "The 
Cliff Works," which then had a capacity not exceeding five 
locomotives per year. In 1864 the planing-mill adjoining the 
Cliff Works was bought, and the manufacture of cars begun. 
At this time (1865) they emploj^ed about 400 men, the daily 
heats of iron were about four tons, the monthly disbursement 
to men about $16,000, and the sales over $600,000. In 1866 the 
foundry and machine-shops of Messrs. Lanning & Marshall, at 
Wilkes Barre, were purchased, and a branch established there. 
At these shops were manufactured car- wheels and axles, and 
such repairs were executed as were needed about the coal- 
works, the number of men employed there at that time being 
about sixty. 

The business of the company had so increased that in this 
year the capital was enlarged to $600,000, which, however, was 
not all issued till 1870. 
31 



482 APPENDIX. 

In 1867, Mr. Thomas Dickson retired from the presidency, 
and George L. Dickson was elected president in his stead. Mr. 
John C. Phelps, of "Wilkes Barre, was made vice-president, and 
William H. Perkins, secretarj^ and treasurer. 

With the rapid growth in the valley the company kept pace, 
the locomotive-shops were enlarged, and in 1869 a large brick 
foundry was built at the Penn Avenue shops ; this helped the 
business of the Cliff Works as well as the general work, and as 
additions had from time to time been made to the locomotive- 
shops, their capacity was, in 1870, four engines per month. The 
company then employed about 500 men at their three places, 
the daily heats of iron aggregated about seven tons, the pay- 
rolls were about $20,000, and the sales amounted to about 
$975,000. In 1874 the Cliff Works were destroyed by fire, 
entailing a large loss to the company. The work of rebuilding 
was at once begun, and very much improved buildings replaced 
those burned down, new tools of the most modern design were 
put in, and the capacity of the shops increased to sixt}^ locomo- 
tives per year. In 1876 the capital stock of the company was 
further increased to $800,000, at which amount it now stands. 
In 1878 a large brick building, three stories high, was erected 
on the corner of Penn Avenue and Vine Street, to be used as a 
store for the sale of shop and mine supplies, general ofiices and 
storage-house, and the upper floors for the storage of patterns. 
The depression of business from 1873 to 1878 was, of course, 
greatly felt, but all departments were kept at work with a not 
very large decrease of force. In 1880 about 600 men were em- 
ployed, with a monthly pay-roll of about $30,000, and the sales 
amounted to about $740,000 per year. 

In 1882, Mr. G. L. Dickson resigned from the chair of presi- 
dent, and Mr. H. M. Boies, who is known as one of the best 
business men in the country, and as a gentleman of unblemished 
character and reputation, was elected. In that year the work 
of rebuilding the Penn Avenue shops was commenced ; a new 
machine-shop was built, which is conceded by experts to be the 
best-arranged shop, for the class of work done, in the country. 
It covers 223 feet by 100 feet of ground, of which space the 
machine-shop proper occupies 196 feet by 97 feet, together with 
two galleries 25 feet wide running lengthwise of the building on 



APPENDIX. 48o 

both sides, giving altogetlier an available floor-space of nearly 
29,000 square feet. The remaining part of the ground on the 
Vine Street end of the building is occupied by a four-stoiy 
building. In the first story of this building are found, besides 
the foreman's office in the tower, a large room for the storage 
of tools and finished work, and also a very well appointed wash- 
room. On the second (or main) floor are the superintendent's 
office, a large reading-room for the men, and the paymaster's 
office. On the third floor is the office of the mechanical engi- 
neer, which has large storage facilities for drawings, the room 
being fire-proof, and adjoining his office is a large, well-appointed 
di-augh ting-office. A new brick pattern-shop was also built, 
four stories in height, including the basement, 145 feet by 63 
feet, the basement being used for storage of lumber, etc., and here 
also is the power for driving the shop. The first or main floor 
is used entirely for pattern-work, and the upper floors for storage 
of lumber and patterns. The Penn Avenue shops were equipped 
with new tools of the best and most modern design. There was 
placed in the boiler-shop the Tweddell hydraulic system for 
flanging and riveting. 

In 1883 the company's sales amounted to over $1,400,000, 
while the average heat of pig-iron was twenty-five tons per day. 
At present about 1200 men are employed, with an average 
monthly pay-roll of $50,000. The capacity of the different 
shops at the present time is about as follows: 

Penn Avenue Shops. — 600 tons of iron melted per month ; 100 
stationary engines of all kinds, with cylinders over 22-inch 
diameter; mining machinery of all kinds; blast-furnace and 
steel-works machinery ; blast-engines and air-compressors ; roll- 
ing-mill machinery of all kinds; machine-shop machinery of 
all kinds; contractors' machinery of all kinds; water-works 
machinery of all kinds; 20 large boilers per month, including 
locomotive boilers ; 500 steel plate car-wiieels per month. 

Cliff Works. — 100 locomotives per year. 

Wilkes Barre Shops. — 150 stationary engines of all kinds, with 
cylinders under 22-inch diameter; mining machinery of all 
kinds; wire-rope making of all kinds; Cornish pumps of all 
sizes; 50 cast-iron plate car-wheels per day : 200 cylinder-boilers 
per day. 



484 APPENDIX. 

For generating steam the company use culm, and thus save 
man}' thousand dollars. 

Their locomotives are spread over the globe. Along the 
rugged Andes, in South America, they mutter up the sides like 
the antelope ; on the broad prairies of the West they skim along, 
and toil over the rocky barrier to the Golden City; and from 
the great Valley of the St. Lawrence to the city of Mexico the 
legend, "Dickson Manufacturing Co., Scranton, Pa.," appears 
upon engines unsurpassed in beauty, speed, or excellence by 
any other locomotives either in Europe or America. The officers 
are H. M. Boies, President; W. H, Perkins, Secretary and Treas- 
urer; and Sidney Broadbent, Superintendent. 

SCRANTON BRASS- AND FILE-WORKS. 

These works were founded in 1853 by John McLaren. In 
1871, James M. Everhart became interested, when the firm 
began largely to manufacture brass-works for water, gas, and 
steam, also a patent superior file. 

Mr. McLaren died in 1873, when Mr. Everhart became sole 
proprietor. By the introduction of improved machinery, skilled 
labor, and by strict attention to his affairs, he has given a high 
character to the brass industry of this portion of the State. 
The works give employment to a large number of men. 

SCRANTON CITY FOUNDRY. 

On the Hyde Park side of the Lackawanna, above the rail- 
road bridge, is located the large foundry of Finch & Co. Ujion 
the death of A. P. Finch, in 1881, Mr. I. A. Finch became sole 
manager. The firm manufactures stationary and portable en- 
gines, circular saw-mills, mining machinery, iron fronts tor 
buildings, and all kinds of steam-heating apparatus. Their ma- 
chinery is driven by a forty horse-power engine of their own 
construction. Mr. Finch is a reliable man, and one of the best 
business men in Scranton. 

PLANING-MILLS. 

Among the enterprises of Scranton belonging to a single indi- 
vidual the planing-mills of Joseph Ansley excel all others in the 
variety and excellence of machinery for fashioning lumber into 



APPENDIX. 485 

doors, sash, flooring, blinds, sidinir, and mouldings. His build- 
ings and bis lumbcr-j'ards occupy one aero and u half on the 
Hyde Pai-k side above the railroad. The works were begun in 
1848, and purchased bj' him in 1866. A seventy-five horse- 
power engine drives the necessary machinery for dressing and 
manipulating lumber into every i)0S8ible shape. 

In 1884 his mills and yard were destroyed by fire, but his 
indomitable energy immediately replaced them with great im- 
pi-ovement. He sustains the highest character for probit}' and 
fair dealing, and is considered an excellent citizen. 

PROVIDENCE PLAMNU-MILL. 

This old and well-known sash- and blind-factory is now man- 
aged by Miller, Coleman & Co. It is located in Providence, the 
First Ward of the city of Seranton. It was established by 
Hand & Yon Storch in 1848. In the following April, Chauncy 
Hand sold his interest to William and Gregory Yon Storch, and 
tiiey continued the business until 1851, when it passed into the 
hands of E. J. Hand & Son. The next year L. White joined the 
firm, whose name was changed to Hand, White & Co. In 1862 
the firm was Hand, Ward & Co. ; in 1863, Hand & Bristol, by 
Judge Bristol, now of Wilkes Barre, coming in ; in 1865, Hand & 
Costen ; in 1868, Hand, Costen & Co. ; in 1872, Costen & Spencer ; 
in 1876, H. B. Eockwell ; in 1879, Wm. B. Eockwell ; and in 1884 
by its present proprietors. 

The works are run by steam-power, with the most improved 
machinery for converting wood into every desired shape for use, 
and through the intervening change of firms has enjoyed and 
still enjoys a large trade in the Lackawanna Yalley. Jason H. 
Johnson and his partners, Messrs. Millei- and Coleman, enjoy the 
reputation of honorable business men. 

SCRANTON STOVE-WORKS. 

In 1840 there was but a single foundry iti the valley where 
stoves were cast. Where the present Capouse Works of the late 
Mr. Carter, in Providence, stands, Mr. Tilston made two patterns 
of stoves. Grates were in general use, and were cast in great 
abundance. 

Stephen and John Tunstall afterwards opened a stove-foundrj' 



486 APPENDIX. 

in the village of Providence, which, after a time, passed into the 
hands of H. O. Silkman. It was finally burned. 

Among the very largest interests of this city, the Scranton 
Stove- Works stand conspicuously in the foreground. It is not 
in the sense of manufacturing exclusively that these works have 
served to very materially develop the local resources of our city, 
but in the general and positive upholding of the many advan- 
tages Scranton possesses for all classes of manufacturing and 
wholesale features of trade. 

The unremitting exertions to develop the unfathomable re- 
sources lying at our very doors have not only served to demon- 
strate scientific facts regarding it, but have been the source 
which has carried the name of Scranton beyond the boundary 
lines of this continent. 

From nine to thirteen tons of stove-castings are turned out 
per da}'. This product takes the shape of this famous cook and 
healing stoves, dockasb series, which are known beyond the Mis- 
sissippi Eiver, as well as through the Eastern mai'kets. The 
works cover an area of two acres, and give emploj^ment to 150 
hands. 

No compliment which we can bestow would be greater than 
to say that, among the leaders of this trade in the country, the 
works in question have no rivals, which is borne out b}^ the 
great extent of their trade, and certainly no statement is more 
merited, or will be more readily endorsed by their numerous 
patrons. It remains for us to say that the firm has every facil- 
ity for doing the largest trade in stove-castings between Phila- 
delphia and Pittsburg. The roster is composed of J. A. Price, 
President; J. A. Lansing, Secretary; A, C. Fuller, Treasurer. 

GREEN RIDGE. 

In 1868, Green Eidge had no name or being. Upon the 
ancient lands of John Dings, Joshua Grifiin, Henry Whaling, 
and Michael Lutz, embracing a green slope on the east side of 
the Lackawanna, opposite the Indian meadow of Capoose, a 
mile from the court-house, this village or appendage of Scranton 
has emerged within the last two decades. Hon. George San- 
derson, the founder of it, a man of strong, good sense and great 
public spirit, enriched himself b}^ purchasing a portion of these 



ArPENDix. 487 

acres several years ago, and encouraging a village, which, tidy 
and hospitable as the home of a wealthy class, depends upon 
Scranton proper for its subsistence, trade, and mail. It is the 
northern terminus of the Lehigh and Susquehanna Division of 
the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. It has its churches, 
schools, stores, and street railway, and enjoys the advantages of 
the Delaware and Hudson Company's railroad passing through 
it. The new jail is being erected within its border. 

SCRANTON GLASS COMPANY, LIMITED. 

This young and vigorous company is located at this point. 
The works comprise ten lots and are run by a thirty horse- 
power engine and forty power boiler. The furnace-house is 80 
X 100 feet, with nine ovens, which show a daily capacity for 
handling 8000 pounds of metal. This is shown every night in 
the form of 125 gross of bottles, in turn representing druggists' 
glassware, beer and soda bottles, wine glasses, and flasks. 
Eighty-five men and boys are employed throughout the furnace- 
rooms, packing-houses, batch-house, box-shops, crucible-shop, and 
sand- and crusher-house. The annual product will reach a value 
amounting to $100,000. They have a standing order from one 
liu-ge establishment in Chicago for all the ink bottles they can 
111 like. A special force is kept on this order. Mr. Samuel Hinds 
ib president; Charles Henwood, treasurer; and M. A. Goodman, 
superintendent. 

GREEN RIDGE IRON-WORKS, A. L. SPENCER, PROPRIETOR. 

With a capital of $60,000, these works are run by three en- 
gines, one of which is fed with culm, while the others use coal 
costing $1.80 at the bed. An annual output of about four thou- 
sand tons of wrought iron, which appears on the market in 
the form of rails, bar-iron, toe-coi'k steels, strap-rails, band-iron, 
horseshoe iron, truck- and car-axles, with something of a spe- 
cialty in twenty-five pound iron T rails. A force of thirty men. 
are employed. Scrap-iron is purchased by Spencer to any extent^ 
and contracts are solicited by the Green Ridge Iron-Works for 
working over scrap-ii'on. 

Here are again displayed the direct and j)ositive facilities held 
out by Scranton's peculiar location and other undisguised natu- 



488 APPENDIX. 

ral advantages for the successful conduct of iron manufactui-- 
ing. 

While Lackawanna and adjacent counties supply the market 
for the pi"oducts of these works, other sections of this and ad- 
joining States would be equally quick to respond to a greater 
and more diversified product. It can be added that flat, round, 
and square iron is shown by these works. 

The scrap-iron manufactured by Mr. Spencer is superior in 
texture and durability. 

UP THE VALLEY. 

CARBONDALE. 

This place was named before the Wurts's had erected a cabin 
upon its site. The name was compounded by these gentlemen 
in Philadelphia, in 1822, from carbon found in the dale. D. Yar- 
rington, an old gentleman living in Carbondale, was boarding 
upon the mountain, in Eix's G-ap, at that time when a lumber 
two-horse wagon loaded with tools, powder, and camp parapher- 
nalia, driven by a weary teamster, stopped at the Mountain Inn 
to rest after his long journey. The teamster, upon whom de- 
volved the task of finding the unnamed, unknown place, being 
asked whei'e he was going with his strange load, replied, " To 
Carbondale." No one knew where this was, but his loaded stuff 
was prominently mai-ked in lai'ge lettei-s, " Carbondale, 143 miles 
from Philadelphia on the Lackawanna River, Luzerne County, 
Fenna." 

Mr. Yarrington, knowing that some fellows with vague no- 
tions of stone coal had been digging in the woods down by the 
Lackawanna, some three miles from the Mountain Inn, directed 
the bewildered teamster to the camp-ground under the hemlock- 
trees, and then christened Carbondale. 

William Wurts the elder paid me a visit in 1857, and gave me 
the above facts. He then had a bad cough and was exceedingly 
feeble. He died in 1858. 

The city was the first to be incorporated within the limits of 
Luzerne County, the act of Assembly creating it bearing date 
March 15, 1851. On the 15th of December, 1850, a large fire de- 
stroyed the greater portion of the village, which contained about 
-five thousand inhabitants. 



APPENDIX. 489 

The present population of the city is estimated at 9000. It 
had a court-house, but the division of the county extinguished 
its court in 1878. It has two banks, with an aggregate capital 
of $160,000, twenty public schools, two newspapers, seven 
churches, a superior water-works, and two military companies. 
Horatio S. Pierce, although a resident of Scranton, is president 
of the First National Bank, and is regarded as one of the most 
popular and prosperous men in the Lackawanna Valley. 

THE soldiers' MONUMENT. 

In May, 1885, Carbondale erected a suitable monument upon 
the square for her patriotic dead. It was the first city in Lack- 
awanna County to place a stone to commemorate the men who 
died to save the nation when in peril. The W. H. Davis Post, 
Commander J. M. Alexander, and the citizens, generally, liber- 
ally contributed to the expense of its erection. The monument 
was dedicated on Memorial Day, May 30, with the most im- 
pi'essive ceremony by various Posts and by the people of the 
upper end of the county. Its erection was alike creditable to 
the patriotism and the liberality of the citizens of Carbondale. 

VAN BERGEN & CO.'s WORKS. 

These works are located here. They are the oldest in the 
county of Lackawanna, being established in 1833, under the in- 
fluence of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company. 

In 1850, J. Benjamin & Co. conducted the business. In 1873 
the present firm entered, and made many alterations and im- 
provements both in men and machinery. Five acres of land are 
occupied by the machine-shops, pattern- and smith-shops, storage- 
houses, store, and other necessary buildings. Throughout the 
entire works the machinery is of modern design and most im- 
proved kind, all driven by an engine of sixty horse-power. A 
large force of qualified mechanics and machinists are constantl}* 
engaged in building engines and all kinds of mining machinery. 
Castings of iron and brass and car-wheels and other fixtures ai'e 
turned out in large quantities, while repairing machinery in 
general is made a specialty. The firm is also engaged in the 
sale of general hardware goods, water-, gas-, and steam-pipe of 
every description. 



490 APPENDIX. 

Mr. J. B.Van Bergen was born in the State of New York, but 
for many years has been a resident of Carbondale, filling several 
offices of trust, and was elected mayor for four consecutive terms^ 
from 1869 to 1873. 

JERMYN. 

Five miles below Carbondale stands the quiet village of Jer- 
myn. A small brook, called Rush Brook, rushes through a defile 
in the mountain, and from thence the name of Rushdale was^ 
applied to the place ; afterwards called Baconville, then Gibson- 
burg, and finally Jermyn, from John Jermyn, who operated here 
in coal a few years ago. Like all the villages along the Lacka- 
wanna, its life depends upon coal-mining, which is carried on by 
the Delaware and Hudson Company, whose railroad runs through 
it. Excellent water from a mountain stream comes into the vil- 
lage, which is supplied with churches, schools, stores, hotels, and 
drug-stores, enjoying a population of about three thousand. 

THE JERMYN COFFIN- AND CASKET-WORKS. 

These works are located here, and, in spite of strikes, suspen- 
sions, and hard times, furnishes peaceful homes for the occupants 
of a vast territory. John Jermyn is president of the company, 
which employs thirty-five skilled workmen the year round. 

MOOSIC POWDER-WORKS. 

Half a mile below Jermyn is located the Moosic Powder- 
Works. There are three powder-mills within the county in an 
area of fifteen miles, — one on Spring Brook, at Moosic, one on 
the mountain south of Olyphant, and this one. 

The capital of this company, which was organized in 1865, 
was $100,000, and it had a capacity of two hundred kegs a day. 
In 1869 the firm of Laflin, Boies & Yurik, owners of the old 
Ray nor Works at Moosic, was consolidated with the Moosic 
Powder Company, and the capital was increased to $300,000. 
The present capacity of the works is 1000 kegs per da3\ It is 
in a thrifty condition. H. M. Boies is president of the company, 
and J. C. Piatt treasurer. Both gentlemen are well known 
and highly esteemed. Their main office is in Scranton. 



APPENDIX. 



491 



ARCHBAI.D. 

In the wititer of 1844 civilization dawned slowly upon Arch- 
bald, which was named from James Archbald. The narrow 
interval, shaded by forest of pine and enlivened by the clear 
waters of Lackawanna and White Oak l?un, was known as a deer- 
way, where buck and doe, driven from the mountains by pursuing 
hounds, attempting to ford the river to escape, fell an easy prey 
to the rifles of Blakely hunters forty years ago. 

A smith-shop to sharpen drills and miners' picks was built on 
the eastern bank of the stream in 1844 by D. G. Sligh, which 




AKCHBALD IN 1 fS44 



Avas torn down in 1885. Under the auspices of the coal com- 
pany two or three plain dwellings emerged from the fresh 
stumps and fallen logs near the outlet of the run, where Messrs. 
Archbald and Clarkeston had discovered coal. A bridge was 
thrown across the Lackawanna by E. S. Benjamin before a foot 
of land had been cleared upon its borders. It was the wildest 
place in the coal-field chosen for a habitation, and considerations 
of necessity rather than those of beauty of landscape governed 
the selection of Archbald for a village site. A bridle- or foot 
path led along the stream from Mount Vernon (now Winton) to 



492 APPENDIX. 

Baeonville, but neither pike, road, house, or bridge ventured near 
the waterfalls of White Oak Eun. 

The growth of Archbald from that time until now has been 
steady, and it now enjoys a population of over two thousand. 
The Delaware and Hudson Company mine and send off a large 
quantity of coal from here, while Jones, Simpson & Co. are also 
engaged in mining coal and in a general mercantile business. 
Their mines consist of a slope, drift, and a shaft, connected with 
their breaker by a railroad two miles in length. Ten engines 
are employed in operating these mines and in running the 
breaker, working the pump, and in moving the cars. Three 
hundred and fifty men and laborers are employed by the firm, 
and 150,000 tons of coal annually shipped. Mr. George Simp- 
son, of the firm, died last year. Mr. James J. "Williams is the 
general manager of the business, and by his fair dealing and the 
upright manner he conducts all transactions has made himself 
universally popular. 

KNITTING-FACTORY. 

This factory, the only one of its kind in the valle}', was 
started in 1881 by Messrs. Linderman & White. They manu- 
facture woollen and cotton hosiery, jackets, hoods, making a 
specialty of seamless socks. The works give employment to a 
large number of females, and is a great acquisition to the village. 

The purest spring-water is brought from a mountain run to 
the town, and it enjoys all the advantages of a high-school, the 
Delaware and Hudson Eailroad, and some commodious churches. 



A mile down the stream from Archbald, in a sunny glade, lies 
the young mining village of Winton, with its post-office, store, 
and a colliery supplied with coal by the Pierce Coal Company's 
opening on the mountain half a mile east of Archbald and about 
two miles away. In the immediate vicinity coal has not proved 
to be of the first quality, and yet the village, named from W. W. 
WiNTON, one of the most liberal gentlemen of Providence, is ten- 
anted by a hardy and contented pojmlation. Two locomotive 
roads pass through it. The Dolph Coal-Works ai'e located here, 
as is the quarry of stone from which tlu' county jail is built. 



Al'l'ENUlX. 493 

PECKVILLE. 

Named from Samuel Peck, deceased. This village is one of 
the prettiest found in the valley, and less dependent upon mining 
than any other. Its post-office, two churches, two drug-stores, 
schools, and stores supply the wants of its residents in every 
direction, while a grist- and saw-mill, and a jilaning-mill, all run 
by water-power, occupy the attention of many of the artisans 
of the place. 

Peck, Wise & Co. carry on the business, and, owning the saw- 
mill, they are enabled to secure the remaining pine forest be- 
tween this point and Lake Paupack, on the summit of the 
Moosic, saw, kiln-dry, plane, and manufacture the lumber into 
doors, sash, blinds, flooring, siding, and mouldings as the car- 
penters and builders may desire. The members of this firm are 
all recognized by the people of the valley as business men of very 
high order and as excellent citizens. This mill was burned in 
1884 ; rebuilt in 1885. 

OLYPHANT. 

A mile below Peckville stands Olyphant. In 1840-44 a mill- 
pond, a saw-mill, and three houses, two of which are yet stand- 
ing, inhabited by Messrs. Barber, Travis, and Ferris, constituted 
Olyphant. The lands fell into the hands of William Hull, a rich 
farmer, living across the river, who refused to sell or lease them 
to the Delaware and Hudson Company. 

In August, 1858, Lewis Pughe, of Scranton, Edward Jones, of, 
Olyphant, and Abel Barker, of Wyoming, made a lease with 
William Hull for some 500 acres of coal-lands in Blakely, and 
the same year the same parties made a contract with Mott, 
Vosburg, and Newton for other coal-lands in the township of 
Blakely, now Olyphant. The first-named party at once made 
a contract with the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company to 
furnish it with 150,000 tons of coal per annum, at 12J cents per 
ton royalty, until the coal from these two tracts was exhausted. 

Some thirty years before this, Wm. Wurts had purchased coal- 
land from Jonathan Silsbee, below Hull's farm, on Eddy Creek, 
but it was not until the acquisition of these lands in 1858 that 
the company began to develop the place, which was then named 



494 APPENDIX. 

Olyphant, from President Olj-phant, of the Delaware and Hudson 
Company. 

The growth of the borough has been rapid since then, and it 
has at the present time every element of prosperity to make 
desirable homes for the industrious dwellers of the village. The 
Delaware and Hudson Company bring out a large quantity of 
anthracite, while the private works of Johnson & Co. exhume 
very many tons for local and foreign markets. 

Churches, a high-school, four doctors, two drug and other 
stores, good hotels, and a post-office accommodate the citizens, 
while three railroad tracks pass through it. Water is brought 
over two miles from the Moosic range, and amply supplies the 
demand. 

PRICE. 

Down the Lackawanna, half a mile below Olyphant, this 
settlement appears upon the old farms of Luke and Michael 
Deckers of twenty-five years ago. It is the newest village in 
the valley. Eli K. Price, Prof Pancost, and Dr. B. H. Throop 
owned the fields where the town is situated. From Mr. Price 
it took its name. Its first inhabitants were Germans. 

In 1880, John Jermyn sunk a shaft and erected some expen- 
sive coal-works here, which gave to trade and building lots 
great impetus and activity in every branch of business. Mr. 
Jermyn ships a large quantity of coal from this point to New 
York each year. A single church, a fine school building, a drug- 
store, post-office, three hotels, and four stores enliven the village, 
which is the thriftiest one in the valley. A railroad depot and a 
school-house stands midway between Price and Dickson City. 

DICKSON CITY. 

This place, where Peter A. Snyder was the sole occupant in 
1844, and yet resides here, deigned to be called Yaughn, then 
HoLLiSTER, but these gentlemen objected to have their names 
thus perpetuated. It was called Dickson, from the late Thomas 
Dickson. 

Messrs. Pughe, Baker, and Jones leased the coal-lands at 
Dickson, and subsequently sold their lease to Wm. H. Eichmond 
and Charles P. Wurts. This change of property gave birth to 
Dickson as a village and to the Elk Hill Iron and Coal Company, 




WILLIAM MERRIFIELD. 



APrEMJix. 497 

of which Eichmond was president, until the breuUer was burned 
in 1882. Mr. Eichmond has recently erected a breaker in the 
Second Ward of the city of Scranton, where lie is mining coal 
to great advantage. 

The post-office department added city to the village, to distin- 
guish it from other towns in the State by the name. 

The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Eailroad have sunk 
a shaft here that will keep busy and give sustenance to a large 
number of men. 

The old Indian apple-tree, described in this volume, page 61, 
^vas blown down on the night of Septeuil^er 23, 1885. It was 
the oldest tree in this section of the Stale. 

THE INCEPTION OP LACKAWANNA COUNTY. 

Lackawanna County was erected out of Luzerne under an 
Act of Assembly approved April 17, 1878. At an election held 
in August, 1878, out of 11,601 votes, 0(jl5 wore cast in favor of 
the new county. 

As earlj' as 1837 the citizens of Lackawanna Valley living 
above the bridge at Pittson began to agitate the question of a 
division, which was only settled after forty years of dissension. 
The sentiment of the upper townships was in favor of carving 
Lackawanna County out of Luzerne. In fact, there was no 
measure, no matter how meritorious, so fixed and popular in 
the public mind as was this. No communication with Wilkes 
Barre was had onl}^ by the tri-weekly stage or the slow wagon, 
horseback or on foot, and litigants who sought redress by law 
were compelled to stay there a week, at considerable expense, 
before their cases were reached or postponed until another term. 

In 1843, Hon. William Merrifield, of Hyde Park, was 
elected to the Legislature. He served three consecutive terms, 
greatly to the advantage and satisfaction of his constituents. 
He was the real father of the new county. He was the first one 
to give it shape and animation, in spite of strong opposition from 
old Luzerne, which had great influence at Harrisburg because of 
the ability and shrewdness of their evei'-present politicians. At 
the session of 1844 he succeeded in passing through the House 
of Eepresentatives the first bill for the erection of the County 
of Lackawanna. 



498 APPENDIX. 

Providence Village deserves more credit than ixwy other part 
of the territory tor its steady efforts in establishing a new 
county. 

In 1840, Charles H. Silkman and Dr. B, H. Throop removed 
from Honesdale to Providence, which at this time was consid- 
ered the political Mecca of the valley. Nathaniel Cotrill's tav- 
ern, now the Bristol House, as it was termed, was the place 
where Bidlack, Beaumont, Butler, Fuller, Samuel P. Collings, 
Kidder, Wright, Merrifield, and other genial politicians of lesser 
light, were wont to meet annually before election for their coun- 
try's good. In 1844-45 the valley was alive with excitement. 
The friends of the new county purchased a press and type in 
Carbondale, and started the Providence Mirror and Jjackawannian, 
with Frank B. Woodward as its editor, although young Eandall, 
Eankin, and Hill, — all deceased now, and all law students of 
Silkman then, — and others contributed largely' to its editorial and 
local columns. Silkman had three distinct objects in view: 
First, the defeat of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company 
from coming down the valley to Archbald with their gravity 
raih-oad from Carbondale ; Second, to aid the Erie Eoad, then 
being surveyed, whose agent he was, to come up the Lacka- 
waxen and Paupack, through Hawley and Cobb's Gap, Leg- 
gett's Gap, and follow the line now used by the Delaware, 
Lackawanna and Western Eailroad to Great Bend, instead of 
going to Narrowsburg; and Third, the division of the county 
of Luzerne. He had little or no legal business, and his whole 
time was devoted to the accomplishment of these three objects. 
During the winter of 1845-46 meeting after meeting was held 
at least once a week at either Green's hotel, in Hyde Park, 
Cotrill's tavern, in Providence, at Waite Cannon's, now F. Keif- 
er's place, in Price, or at the hotel of Levi Lillibridge, in 
Blakely. There was no Archbald then. Not a tree had been 
felled upon its site until the winter of 1845. 

At these meetings Silkman, who was a fluent, persuasive, 
incisive speaker, full of vigor and venom, was the moving spirit. 
He called the meetings to order, appointed committees, made 
speeches, wrote resolutions, and reported them for the Mirror and 
Lackawannian, now on file in my office. The people of the valley 
were fevered with an agitation unparalleled before or since. 



APl'KNDIX. 499 

In 1852, Hon. A. B. Dunning, then residing in Providence as a 
merchant, was sent to the Legislature for three concurrent ses- 
sions without advancing the interest of the new county in the 
least, owing to the determined and bitter opposition of Buckalew, 
then a power at Harrisbnrg, and other selfish persons- in old 
Luzerne, naturally inimical to a measure not calculated to ad- 
vance their interests. Had the jiroposed new county been 
erected at this time, Providence instead of Scranton would have 
been the county-seat. 

After its defeat, Silkman, beguiled into a purchased silence, 
retired from the contest. The 3Iirror. with its editor, removed 
to Virginia, where he soon after died of consuini)tion. 

It was not until 1873, when the Constitutional Convention 
was held, that Lewis Pughe and A. B. Dunning bi'ougbt it 
favorably before the public. Especially was it due to the able 
and convincing speech of Mr. Pughe that the objectionable 
feature which required a submission to the vote of the whole 
<;ounty was defeated. 

James Archbald, F. L. Paries, P. Blewitt, and A. Bryson, Jr., 
were appointed commissioners to survey the boundaiy line 
between the old and new counties. 

FIRST OFFICERS OF THE COUNTY. 

Pj-esidunt Judge, Benjamin S. Bentle}';* Prothonotar}-. F. \^. 
Hitchcock; Sheriff, A. B. Stevens; Treasurer, Col. William N. 
Monies; Clerk of Courts, Joshua E. Thomas; Eecorder, A. M. 
Eenshaw ; Eegister, John L. Lee; District Attornej^, F. W. 
Gunster; County Surveyor, P. M. Walsh; County Commis- 



* The appointment of Judge Bentley was made on the ground that 
Lackawanna County, the moment it was erected, became, under the pro- 
visions of the Constitution, a separate judicial district. A mandamus was 
issued by the Supreme Court, wherein it was decided that the Constitution 
did not execute itself, but that legislation was necessary before a new dis- 
trict could be created, hence the appointment was illegal and void. Hy the 
provisions of the New-County Act, the new county was to remain in tl;e 
same judicial district with the old, hence the judges of Luzerne organized 
and held the courts. By Act of Assembly of Marcli 13, 1879, Lackawanna 
was made the Forty-fifth Judicial District, and John Haiidley assigned as 
president judge, and Alfred Hand as additional law judge thereof. 



500 APPKNDIX. 

sioners, H. L. Gaige, II. F. Bai-rett, Deiiuis Tierney; County 
Auditors, W. J. Lewis, Eobert Reeves, E. J. Lyueti ; Jury Com- 
missioners, Eugene Snj^der, J. J. Ljnich ; Coroner, Edward 
Travers, M.D. 

Scranton was naturally selected as the countj'-seat. On the 
2d day of September, 1878, Hon. B. F. Bentley, of Williamsport, 
who had been appointed ])re8ident judge, proceeded to organize 
the several courts of Lackawanna County in Tripp's building, 
situated on the southeast corner of Wyoming Aveiuie and 
Linden Street. On the 17th of the following September the 
court made an order designating Washington Hall, or the 
provost-marshal's drafting place, on the corner of Lackawanna 
and Penn Avenues, as a court-house. 

Soon after the " Bentley Court" was instituted, A. A. Chase, 
of Scranton, applied to the Supreme Court for a mandamus to 
compel the judges of Luzerne County to meet and organize the 
courts of the new count}', basing his application on the ground 
that, l)y the provisions of the New-County Act, Lackawanna 
was not a separate judicial district, and, therefore, the onl}- court 
authorized by law was that to be established by the judges of 
Luzerne Count}', the Eleventh Judicial District. The application 
was sustained, and notwithstanding the large number of judg- 
ments, mortgages, and deeds recorded, and suits begun, involving 
hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Supreme Court, on the 
18th of October, 1878, issued a peremptory mandamus to Gar- 
rick M. Harding, president judge, and John Handley and William 
H. Stanton, additional law judges of Luzerne County, to forthwith 
organize the courts of Lackawanna County. And thereby the 
" Bentley Court" and all proceedings thereunder were annulled. 

Pursuant to this mandamus, the judges of Luzerne County 
proceeded, on the 24th of October, 1878, to organize the courts 
of Lackawanna County, and the county machinery was started 
in due form of lavv. 

The constant and increasing demands for space for officers, 
books, records, etc., upon the county, which the Second National 
Bank rooms could not furnish, made a new court-house quite as 
imperative as had been the demands for a new county. 

In the early part of 1879 the matter of erecting county build- 
ings began to be agitated. Nothing positive as to a location 



APPKNIHX. 501 

was determined until the 15th of December, 1879, when the 
County of Lackawanna, by the county commissioners, accepted 
as a gift a deed from the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company 
and Edward F. Hodges, John B. Newman, and Isaac C. Price, 
trustees of the Susquehanna and Wyoming Valley Kailroad 
and Coal Company, for the block bounded by Washington 
Avenue, Linden Street, Adams Avenue, arul Spruce Street. 

Notwithstanding the many doubts expressed as to the possi- 
bility of securing a substantial foundation on this propert}', 
which had recently been an impassable swamp, yet the commis- 
sioners determined to take the initiatory steps towards erecting 
a court-house. And on May 15, 1880, they issued a circular 
inviting competition from architects in presenting plans for a 
court-house, in size to be not less than 100 feet by 140 feet, and 
in cost not to exceed $100,000. 

Plans were submitted and ])ro|)()s;iis made in August, 1880, for 
the erection of the court-house ; hut it was not until March, 1881. 
that the contract was awarded to John Snaith, of Ithaca, N. Y., 
whose bid was $139,927 for superstructure and foundation to a 
depth of iwenty-tbur feel holow water-table, and $5.00 per perch 
for stone-masonry, and 60 cents per cubic yard for excavation ; 
the building to be made of native sandstone, the same as that in 
liie Librarj' Building, on Wyoming Avenue, and to be trimmed 
with Onondaga gray limestone. The conti-act calls for the 
completion of the building on the 1st day of April, 1883. 

Ground was broken by the contractor on the 14th day of 
April, 1881. 

In excavating for the foundation, the greatest depth of exca- 
vation is thirty -four feet eight inches below the grade of Wash- 
ington Avenue; the average depth of foundation is twenty-nine 
feet six inches. The additional cost for excavation and foun- 
dation was $30,932.55 ; original contract, $139,927.00 ; total, 
$170,859.55. 

Mr. Snaith gave approved bonds in the sum of $75,000 for the 
faithful fulfilment of his contract. 

In order that the woi'k might be prosecuted as speedilj- as 
possible, the commissioners decided, April 23, 1881, to issue 
bonds for $150,000. pledging in payment therefor the taxable 
property of the count}-, which amounts to I'nore than $30,000,000. 



502 APPENDIX. 

on full valuation. These bonds bear five per cent, interest^ 
and $100,000 of them have alread}^ been delivered, many at a 
jiremium. 

On the morning of May 25 a heavy, cold rain disappointed 
the thousands that had assembled to witness and assist in the 
laying of the corner-stone. The Catholic clergymen of the 
city very opportunely tendered the use of their lai'go tent fur 
the occasion. 

The corner-stone, containing many interesting and valuable 
contributions, literary and otherwise, was laid with true Masonic 
ceremony b}" the Masons of Lackawanna County and Knights 
Templar as escort of the acting officers of the Grand Lodge of 
F. and A. M. of the State of Pennsylvania. Messrs. Stevens, 
Buck, Kingsbury, Jacobs, Van Schoick, Alexander, Lewis, Van 
Buskirk, E.oesler, Williamson, Davis, and Jacobs took part in 
the ceremony. 

We copy largely from Eobert McKune's admirable Lacka- 
wanna County Memorial. 

At this point the Hon. Alfred Hand was introduced, and pro- 
ceeded to deliver the following oration : 

My Fellow-Citizens, — It would have been appropriate to 
prepare foi- this important occasion a history and some of the 
characteristics of our laws, but in the ten minutes allotted me 
by your Committee of Arrangements I can only give briefly a 
Tribute to the Jurisprudence of Pennsylvania. 

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has to-day a system of 
laws as wise, as just, and as finished as the world has ever seen. 
Her civil jurisprudence is linked to the wisdom and experience 
of the ages. It has gathered into its folds principles from Sinai, 
Eome, Eunnymede, and Bunker Hill. Eighteousness, philoso- 
phy, personal rights, and independence are stones in its founda- 
tion-walls. Political equality rests upon all her citizens. Her 
criminal code is as perfect as human ingenuity and research 
have been able to formulate. Her principles of equity are ap- 
plied to the smallest as well as the lai'gest ti-ansactions of life in 
which human interests are at stake. Her administration of jus- 
tice is comparatively inexpensive, free from intricacy, and, with 
exceptional and unavoidable cases, speedy. " Eight and justice 
are administered without sale, denial, or dela}'." 



APPENDIX. 503 

We meet here to-day to dedicate this building to Tiaw and 
Justice, solely and exclusively. In honoring these this great 
concourse of all classes and divers organizations does honor to 
itself". Religion is interested in this structure, but we do not 
rear it to religion. Science is interested, but we raise it not to 
science; art, but we build it not to art; social and civic life, but 
we erect it not to these. Business is interested, but we place no 
tribute to business on its walls. The fireside is interested in 
these corridors, from the infant drawing life from its mother's 
breast to the old man tottering on his staff, but they are not 
dedicated to the family. But to that which regulates human 
conduct in all departments — Law — and that which judges 
thereof — Justice — we build a temple, grand in proportions and 
beautiful in design. 

Next to that science which treats of the relations of God to 
man, is that which comprehends and considers the relations of 
man to man. Yonder church-spires point man to Almighty God 
for eternal life ; the spire which shall surmount this stone points 
man to God for the regulation of this mortal life. Next to the 
church is the temple of Justice — next in dignity, next in useful- 
ness, next in honor. Does the Almighty appear at the altar or 
sanctuary, so does he appear at the place of judgment; for it is 
wiiuen, 'Ye judge not for man, but for Jehovah, who is with 
you in the judgment." To law and justice we elevate these mon- 
umental walls and towers. Law is inseparable from motion or 
existence. It is written on the universe. There is no speech 
nor language where its voice is not heard. On the stars of 
heaven, on the comets whirling through space, on the rocks of 
the mountains, on the dew-drop flashing in the sunbeam, on the 
sunbeam coloring the dew-drop, we read the testimony to law. 
All living creatures are under law. Man alone, in his relation to. 
man, seems without law, until he begins to govern himself. 
The Creator appears to have decreed that man shall make and 
enforce his own law for his own conduct, responsible to the 
Almighty for the mandate and the obedience. In this effort ta 
enact " the rule commanding what is right and prohibiting what 
is wrong," our own Commonwealth stands high among the 
States of the world. Our law preserves the good of the past ;, 
retains the old, not because it is old, but because it is good. Wo 



oOt APPENDIX. 

glory in our common law. Christianity is a part of it. We do 
equity under the forms of law. We sacrifice not justice to form, 
protect the officer and citizen, place high responsibility on exec- 
utive, judge, and legislator, hold them responsible for their trust, 
and in the administration of that trust make them secure. 
While we give large liberty to the people and make much of 
personal rights, we at the same time protect them from their 
own folly in times of excitement. It has always been the aim 
of our law-makers and judges to bring law and justice together 
in theoretical and practical harmony. Our civil law attests suc- 
cess in this direction. Our criminal law is profound and philo- 
sophical. It meets, as might be expected, greater obstacles in 
the investigation and punishment of crimes. To protect the in- 
nocent we, at times, screen the guilty. It needs always a just, 
discriminating, and upright people. Would that I had the 
power to impress upon the mind of every citizen of this county 
a proper view of the noble attribute of Justice. Justice springs 
from the bosom of the Almighty, is strong for good, terrible to 
evil, full of blessing, security, and health to the State and society. 
Justice sweeps away all subterfuges, disregards all false apolo- 
gies, knows no passion or prejudice, entrenches herself in exact 
truth, honesty, and intelligence. Justice has no maudlin sympa- 
thy for evil-doers, falsely called merc}^; no disgusting sentiment 
of licentiousness, falsely called liberty. Justice stands erect in 
fair proportions, honoi'ably clad, with no blush of shame for her 
acts. She comes forth to-day and says, in clear and truthful 
tones, that sympathy for crimes is cruelty to the State. The 
ancients represented Justice as blind, holding the scales even. 
She is blind to parties, blind to passion and everything except 
truth. She begs us never to pluck the bandage from her eyes 
nor disturb the even balance of her scales. 

As we stand here to-day, holding in our minds the picture of 
this edifice as it will be, imagination brings to view the relation 
it will sustain to the people of this county. Before this single 
tribunal, which, under our economy, embraces all legal questions, 
what scenes of human welfare and human woe will be enacted ; 
what fortunes saved and fortunes destroyed ; what hopes ele- 
vated and blasted! Homes will be cheered and made desolate, 
truth maintained and falsehood exposed, reputations vindicated 



AIM'KNDIX. 605 

and lost; peace will come to some and unrest to others; the 
sacred relation of marriage will be protected and also sundered. 
Here will be brought, as from a rough and troubled sea, the 
conflicts, passions, and selfishness of the political arena; here 
the quiet, stern mandate of the law shall say, "Peace, be still," 
when the people, mindful of the respect due to their own tribu- 
nals, with serene dignity, will submit and return to the calm of 
ordinary life. Here will come up for adjudication the rights of 
persons and the rights of things ; all those interests that relate to 
personal security, personal liberty, and private property ; to mag- 
istrates, the Legislature, to the people at large in their organized 
capacity' ; matters civil and military ; all the relations of master 
iind servant, husband and wife, parent and child, guardian and 
ward, the rights and duties of artificial persons, bodies politic 
tind corporate. Here will be resolved the intricacies of real-estate, 
their tenures, the law of their descent and alienation. Here 
will be redressed private wrongs, calling into action all the 
machinery of courts of justice in their different divisions of 
Common Pleas, Orphans' Court, and Equity, with all the multi- 
plicity of suits and pleadings which once made men immortal, 
but which are now so simplified that it is quite as hard to blunder 
successfully as to plead scientifically. Here will be investigated 
and punished public wrongs which test the frame-work of societ}- ; 
oifences against God and religion, officers and government, public 
justice, peace, trade, health, and economy, with the long cata- 
logue of crimes from homicide to misdemeanors. Here will be 
pronounced that sentence which is heaven's estimate of human 
life, and tells a man that he is not fit to live, because he has 
despised God-given life in another — that sentence which no just 
law will ever repeal or reverse, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, 
by man shall his blood be shed." 

What power for good in its silent influence has such a building 
as this? Well may it call together such an expression from the 
people as we witness here to-day. Not alone in the active 
judgments rendered within these walls do we find the people's 
estimate of right and abhorrence of evil, but in that greater, 
more sublime, more eloquent tribute to justice which comes from 
the voluntary obedience of the people. Law is best honored in 
tsilent. unresisting obedience to her behests. As this corner-st.o>-. 



50(J APPENDIX. 

holds secure for centuries yet to come the evidence of to-day's 
progress, so our jurisprudence, unique in its combinations, holds 
the wisdom and principles of to-day, gathered in all the past, to 
be handed down unimpaired and venerable to the generations 
yet unborn. This corner-stone, placed at the seat of justice for 
this newest county of the Commonwealth, allies us to the wisdom 
of the past, and gives hope in the onward progress of civilization. 
This is akin to those historical events which in their significance 
have themselves been termed corner-stones of liberty and truth. 
Here and there in the great conflict between right and wrong, 
truth and error, we find sacred spots wet with human blood and 
tears, where some great principle was maintained and right 
secured. We here, in harmony and gladness, make sacred this 
spot on which this stone rests, assuring ourselves and the world 
that within the lines which comprise this county justice shall be 
upheld and private and public rights protected. This building, 
completed as designed, from foundation-stone to turret-pinnacle, 
is a fit emblem of our jurisprudence. In the long j^ears that 
are passed in the history of our own and our mother-county, 
we have dug deep through the muck and mire and tangled roots 
of human pride, prejudice, and ignorance to lay a foundation 
for our judicial system upon the primal rocks and stable 8up|)oi-t 
of truth and justice; we have builded course after course until 
our progress has lifted us into the sunlight of a pure atmospliere. 
On this we have raised a fair structure of equal rights and 
balanced powers that has called forth admiration and honor, 
and at the same time points to a higher and nobler state of 
perfection. We have our institutions preserved to us in won- 
derful purity and power. On no part of this globe are human 
rights more accurately adjusted with less friction or cause of 
complaint than on Pennsylvania soil. On no soil are wicked 
combinations against the peace of society more surely broken 
up, nor the judgments of courts and juries more universally 
just and unimpeachable. Our laws and their administration 
are as nearly perfect as human nature has yet been able to 
attain unto. Our machinery is well constructed, ready for per- 
fect action and proper results, and as intelligence, temperance, 
and integrity pervade the people, so will the dishonoring criti- 
cisms which are occasionally made wholly vanish and disap- 



APPENDIX. 507 

pear. On the true instincts of the people, enlightened hy ex- 
perience and strengthened by knowledge and integrity, all 
security and .peace of society rest. We hold the titles to our 
homes, protection to life, property, and reputation at the disposal 
of the twelve historic jurymen drawn from the people. When 
they ai'e wise, educated, and upright, we are safe; when preju- 
<lice, passion, ignorance, or recklessness characterize the trial by 
jury, it loses its honored place in our jurisprudence, and indi- 
vidual rights and safety are gone. May the honored progress 
of our citizens in all that is noble and lofty, and their respect 
for the institutions of law and justice that have been handed 
down to us from our forefathers, preserve this county among 
those noted for order, thrift, and happiness. 

At the close of Judge Hand's address. Grand Chajilain E. W. 
Van Schoick pronounced the benediction, thus concluding the 
cei'emonies of the fraternity, and, after music by Bauer's Band, 
the spectators dispersed. The ceremonies were ver}- impressive 
throughout, and attracted earnest attention. 

The following is the history prepared by E. Merrifield, Esq., 
at the request of the county commissioners, and deposited in 
the corner-stone : 

The County of Lackawanna is the outgrowth of an agitation 
that continued for nearly forty years. It is the fourth county 
that has been taken from territory originally embraced in Lu- 
zerne. In 1839, Joseph Griffin, of Providence Township, was 
elected to the House of Kepresentatives, being the first to 
occupy that position from the Lackawanna District. At that 
time the question of dividing Luzerne and creating a county 
out of the northeastern portion began to assume a serious 
aspect, and became a disturbing element in local politics. The 
opponents of the measure dealt a serious blow, when, in 1842, 
they consented to the creation of the new county of Wyoming. 
But this did not serve to quell the agitation, as in 1843 it was 
made an issue, and William Merrifield, of Hyde Park, was 
elected to the Legislature, and continued for three successive 
terms. At the session of 1844 he succeeded in passing through 
the House of Representatives the first bill for the creation of 
Lackawanna County. William S. Ross, of Wilkes Barre, then 
senator from the district, made a fierce and desperate oppositioPi. 



508 APPENDIX. 

which resulted in its defeat by a tie vote. In 1852, A. B. Dun- 
ning was sent to the Legislature upon the same issue, and 
continued the two following years. Several times, by a very 
flattering vote, he jnissed the bill through the House, Init 
Charles E. Buckalevv, then senator from the district, occupied a 
very prominent and influential position, and defeated it by a 
bare majority. In 1857, through the influence of Buckalew, 
and directly as the result of the agitation of the Lackawanna 
County project, came the amendment to the Constitution pro- 
hibiting the erection of new counties without being first sub- 
mitted to the vote of the entire county. This was intended as 
a fatal blow to the project, — in foct, proved such for the time 
being, — yet it did not stop the clamor of the new-county advo- 
cates. In 1863, Jacob Robinson and Peter Walsh, then members 
of the House of Representatives, passed a bill submitting to the 
voters of Luzerne the question of the erection of a new county 
to be called Lackawanna. The election was duly held, and 
resulted in its defeat by about 3000 majority. This proved a 
quietus to new-county talk for more than five years. In 1870, 
however, our people were again actively interesting themselves 
in behalf of the project, and a bill was before the Legislature 
for most of the sessions down to the final passage of the enabling 
act of 1878. The beginning of dawn in the great fight was in 
1873, when, in the Constitutional Convention, Lewis Pughe and 
A. B. Dunning, members thereof, labored so zealously in its 
interest. 

Under the provisions of the new Constitution, all special legis- 
lation being prohibited, it became necessary to pass a bill that 
would not only be operative for one, but for all sections of the 
State, and during the sessions of 1875, 1876, and 1877 our people 
were co-operating with other interests to secure the enactment 
of such a law ; especially during 1876, F. W. Gunster then being 
a member of the House from Scranton, and occupying a promi- 
nent and influential position, there was a s])irited and deter- 
mined effort made. The fact, however, that it antagonized so 
many of the different counties provoked a fight that was not 
only formidable, but irresistible. Our thoughts and energies 
were then directed to the question as to whether or not a bill 
could be framed that would meet the exigencies of the case, and 



APl'tNDlX. 509 

escape such general opposition. At a meeting of the Scranton 
Bur during the winter of 1878 the matter was duly considered, 
and the writer deputed to draft an act in accoi'dance therewitii. 
This was forwarded and read in place by James O. Kierstol, 
member of the House of Representatives from Sci*anton. On 
the 17th of April, 1878, it became a law, and under which the 
new County of Lackawanna was ushered into being. 

The fight for the passage of the bill was interesting and excit- 
ing. With Mr. Kiersted was J). M. Jones, his colleague, who 
were ably assisted by A. I. Ackerly and John B. Smith, repre- 
senting other sections of Luzerne, and Greorge B. Seamans, 
senator from the district. Among those who devoted a large 
})ortion of their time at Harrisburg in behalf of the project 
were E. N. Willard, E. H. McKune, F. W. Gunster, F. L. Hitch- 
cock, J. B. Barrett, and E. Merrifield, aided from time to time 
by B. H. Throop, George Sanderson. A. H. Win ton, Lewis Pughe, 
il. S. Pierce, J. A. Scranton, U. G. Schoonmaker, Corydon H. 
Wells, and John H. Powell. The Scranton Republican, very able 
in the advocacy, was for weeks placed upon the desks of the 
members, and had much to do in creating a iiivorable sentiment. 
After the contest had progressed for quite a length of time, with 
varying prospects, but without substantial progress, a meeting 
was held in the city of Scranton, which was the pivotal point, 
and the result of which finally led to triumph. The soldiers 
upon the battle-ground had been continually hampered for want 
of necessary means. Aside from the liberal action taken by the 
Scranton Board of Trade, the subscriptions had been compara- 
tively small, and now had come a time when princely contri- 
butions were a necessity. It must either be a plethoric treasury 
or a graceful retirement from the field. The major part of the 
opulent citizens of Scranton were singularly apathetic and in- 
difterent to the necessities of the case. At this juncture Edward 
N. Willard, Aretus H. Winton, and myself were so fortunate 
as to call in council Benjamin H. Throop, George Sanderson, 
William W. Winton, and Horatio S. Pierce, who succeeded in 
talking each other into such a commendable spirit of liberality 
as led to an adequate supply of the sinews of war, atid without 
which there would not have been a new county. 

On the 17th of April, 1878, in accordance with the require- 



510 APPENDIX. 

ments of the act, there was filed in the office of the Secretary of 
Internal Affairs at Harrisburg a petition, it being the initiatory 
step under the terms of the law for the erection of the count}' 
of Lackawanna ; whereupon William Gi'iffis, of Bradford County, 
David Summers, of Susquehanna, and E. H. Saunders, of Phil- 
adelphia, were appointed commissioners, who, after the requisite 
investigation, on the 25th of June, 1878, made report recommend- 
ing the erection of said county. On the 8th of July following. 
Governor John F. Hartranft issued a proclamation ordering that 
an election be held in the proposed district August 13, 1878. 
There were cast 9615 votes in favor, and 1986 against the new 
county, being a majority of 7629 votes in favor thereof A proc- 
lamation by the governor, dated August 21, 1878, declared the 
said county established. 

The result, so one-sided in its final showing, was brought about 
after a most thorough and exciting canvass. The friends of the 
measure vied with each other in working heartily and faithfully 
for success, hence it would be impossible, in a brief historical 
sketch, to give all the names. Besides the gentlemen heretofore 
named as friends of the cause, William N. Monies, I. H. Burns, 
Mayor T. Y. Powderly, Cornelius Smith, E. W. Archbald, J. E. 
Thomas, John F. Connolly, J. B. Collings, F. Johnson, and 
George Allen were particularly active and influential in contrib- 
uting to the result. In the evening the victory was celebrated 
in a brilliant and never-to-be-forgotten mannei-. Lackawanna 
Avenue was illuminated from one end to the other. Bells were 
ringing, bonfires i"oared, the cannon thundered, and thousands 
of people going from house to house, singing and shouting their 
glad notes of triumph, formed a pageant that would have done 
honor to any cause that ever claimed the prowess of knight or 
hero. 

By virtue of the power conferred under the law, the governor 
commissioned the following-named gentlemen as officers of the 
county: F. L. Hitchcock, Prothonotary ; A. B. Stevens, Sheriff; 
J. E. Thomas, Clerk of the Courts; A. Miner Eenshaw, Eecorder ; 
J. L. Lee, Eegister of Wills ; F. W. Gunstei', District Attorney ; 
E. J. Lynott, Auditor; James Lynch, Eugene Snyder, Jury 
Commissionei's ; William N. Monies, Treasurer ; Horace F. Bar- 
rett, Henry L. Gaige, Dennis Tierney, Count}^ Commissioners. 



APPENDIX. 511 

At the same time Benjamin F. Bentley was commissioned as 
president judge, but by a writ of mandamus issued by the Su- 
preme Court at the instance of A. A. Chase, the said appoint- 
ment was declared illegal, and on the 24th day of October, 1878, 
the several courts of the county were organized by Hon. Garrick 
M. Harding, Pr-sident Judge, Hon. John Ilandley and Hon. W. 
H. Stanton, Additicmal Law Judges. At the fall election of 1878 
W. J. Lewis and P. M. Moffitt were elected associate judges of 
the county. There was elected at the same time a full set of 
county officers, but by a decision of the Supreme Court it was 
held that the same was premature; hence the first election of 
county officials by the people took place on the 4th day of No- 
vember. 1879. 

THE BANQUET. 

Pursuant to a call, a meeting of the members of the bar of 
Lackawanna County and the citizens who were active in the 
'new-county movement was held on the evening of May 16. E. 
Merrifield, Esq., was chosen president, and A. II. Winton sec- 
retary. After a free exchange of opinions in regard to the ad- 
visability of having further proceedings than those designated 
by the commissioners, on motion of Hon. F. W. Gunster, sec- 
onded by Dr. B. H. Throop, it was resolved that on the evening 
of May 25 a banquet should be held. It was further resolved 
that a committee of ten be appointed, with the president as ex- 
■officio chairman, to make the necessary arrangements for said 
banquet. The following persons were chosen as such committee: 
Dr. B. H. Throop, E. N. Willard, Esq., Hon. E. H. McKune, 
Hon. F. W. Gunster, Hon. F. D. Collins, John F. Connolly, Esq., 
I. H. Burns, Esq., Hon. Lewis Pughe, and Hon. D. M. Jones. 

At a subsequent meeting the following persons were chosen to 
iict on the several committees : 

Committee of Arrangements.— R. H. McKune, J. H. Campbell, 
R W. Archbald, VV. T. Smith, George Fisher. 

Committee on Organization.— Dv. B. H. Throop. E. N. Willard. 
H. A. Knapp. 

Committee on Toasts.— F. W. Gunster, Dr. B. H. Throop, A. H. 
Winton, F. D. Collins, U. G. Schoonmaker. 

Committee on Invitations. — Lewis Pughe, H. M. Edwards, J. F. 
Connolly, T. V. Powderly, C. Smith. 



512 Al'PENDlX. 

Committee on Reception. — H. S. Pierce, W. W. Winton, D. W. 
Connolly, E. B. Sturges, J. B. Collings. 

Committee on Tickets. — E. C. Fuller, Thomas Barrownian, G. S. 
Horn, J. Alton Davis, Victor Koch, Thomas F. Wells, John F. 
Scragg. 

The following invitation was issued to pei-sons residing out of 
the city : 



You are respectfully invited to a 
Grand Banquet, 

given under the auspices of the 

Scr anion Bar Association, and Citizens, 

'n honor of the erection of the County of Lackawanna, and the 

Laying of the Corner-Stone of the New 

Court-House, 

to he held on the evening of May 35th, 

at the Wyoming House. 

Scranton, Pa., May 18, 18S2. 



The following is the programme of toasts: 
President of the evening, Dr. B. H. Throop ; Toast-Master, A. 
H. Winton. 

1. "Lackawanna County — Labor Omnia Vincit." Edward 
Merrifield, Esq. 

2. " Our Invited Friends and Guests — We Welcome Them." 
Hon. G. M. Harding. 

3. " Our Country — One and Indivisible." Hon. J. A. Sci-an- 
ton. 

4. " Our Commonwealth — The Keystone of the Arch." His 
Excellency Henry M. Hoyt. 

5. " The Pulpit— The Light of the World." Eev. Dr. J. E. 
Smith. 

6. " Our Military — The Pride of Our State. May we Never 
Need their Prowess." Col. H. M. Boies. 

7. "The Judiciary— Tiie Purer the Better." Hon. P. B. 
Collins. 



APPENDIX. 



513 



8. "The Senior Bar — Old Men for Counsel." Hon. George 
Sanderson, 

9. "The Junior Bar — Lis Sub Judice." John F. Connolly, 
Esq. 

10. -'Our Constitution — The Step|)ini>--Slone to Oui- jS'cw 
Count}'." Hon. A. B. Dunning. 

11. "Our Manufacturing Interests — By Iiidustrv We 
Thrive." W. W. Scranton. 

12. " The Press — The Lever that Moves the World." Hon, 
J, E. Barrett. 

13. " Our City — The Third in the Commonwealth." E. P. 
Kingsburj-. 

14. "Our Commercial Interests — Made Prosperous by En- 
ergy." Thomas H. Dale. 

15. '• Our Fire Department — Nunquam Non Paratus." Hon. 
Eobert H. McKune. 

16. '• Old Counties, Farewell — The Transplanted Oak," 
John Beaumont Collings. 

17. "Our Absent Friends — Though Absent, to Memory 
Dear." Col. J. A, Price. 

18. "The Ladies — Omnia Vincit Amor." F, J, Fitzsimmons. 
The following gentlemen were present, and partook of the 

festivities of the occasion : 



W. W. Winton, 

Hon. C. E. Rice, 

Hon. William H. Jessup, 

Hon. P. M. Moffitt, 

Hon. A. I. Ackerley, 

Isaac Price, 

J. J. Williams, 

I. G, Perry, 

.John Snaith, 

John Jermyn, 

Thomas R. Lathrope, 

Thomas Johnson, 

Hon. F. W. Gunster, 

Hon. D. M. Jones, 

Hon. A. B. Dunning, 

Hon. L. Amerraan, 

Col. Ira Tripp, 

Col. George Sanderson, Jr., 

Col. U. G. Schoonmaker, 

W. W. Scranton, 

E. C. Fuller, 



Scranton. 

Wilkes Barre 

Montrose, 

Carbondale. 

Abington, 

Philadelphia. 

Archbald. 

Binghamton. 

Ithaca, N. Y. 

Jermyn. 

Carbondale. 

Milwaukee. 

Scranton. 



Thomas Barrow man, 
H. S. Pierce. 
George Fisher, 
W. T. S.nith, 
Henry Belin, Jr., 
George Jessup, 
H. H. Coston, 

E. P. Kingsbury, 
J. E. Carmault, 
C. H. Welles, 

I. H. Burns, 

F. J. Fitzsimmons 
Thomas H. Dal.-, 
E. B. Sturges, 

Dr. R. A. Squire, 
B. E. Leonard, 
P. J. Horan, 
Dr. L. V/ehlau, 
H. Wehrum, 
.John Tomlinson, 
Dr. Thomas S:c«-int, 



514 



APPENDIX. 



€. R. Pitcher, 

R. T. McCabe, 

J. J. Flanigan, 

John F. Scragg, 

John Benore, 

J. D. Knight, 

D. F. Kearney, 

H. D. Moses, 

Henry Morton, 

B. A. Hill, 

J. H. Campbell, 

Dr, H. B. Throop, 

Selden T. Scranton, 

Col. Charles Scranton, 

Hon. Stanley Woodward, 

Hon. J. B. Van Bergen, 

Hon. D. R. Grant. 

T. N. Eldridge, 

J. C. Delanej', 

H. C. Jessup, 

H. L. Gaige, 

Horace F. Barrett, 

Hon. Alfred Hand, 

Hon. Lewis Pughe, 

Edward Merrifield, 

A. H. Winton, 

Hon. J. E. Barrett, 

Col. H. M. Boies, 

John F. Connolly, 

Henry Jacobs, 

W. W. Williams, 

Dr. H. I. Jones, 



Oxford, N. J. 

Wilkes Barre. 

Carbondale. 

Binghamton. 

Owego, N. Y. 

Harrisburg. 

Montrose. 

Moscow. 

Schultzville. 

Scranton. 



Patrick Coar, 
Elhanan Smith, 
L. A. Watres, 
Joseph Godfrey, 
H. A. Kingsbury, 
R. W. Archbald, 
H. M. Edwards, 
H. A. Knapp, 
Henry Sommers, 
Henry Battin, 
Dr. W. H. Pier, 
M. H. Dale, 
H. D. Hinsdell, 
Victor Koch, 
Reese G. Brooks, 
William Keiser, 
F. J. Johnson, 
Dr. A. E, Burr, 
S. Samter, 
C. W. McKinney, 
L. L. Eaton, 
A. McNuIty, 
John B. Collings, 
Robert Reese, 
J. M. Everhart, 
W. McDaniels, 
John Morris, 
Thomas Stewart, Jr., 
C. E. Pryor, 
George Throop, 
H. H. Yeager, 
Robert H. McKune, 



At eight o'clock the guests began to assemble at the Wyoming 
House, filling the corridors and parlors. The Committee of 
Reception was active in receiving and welcoming all, while from 
Bauer's orchestra came strains of pleasant melodies, filling the 
house with the sweetest music. The dining-hall was tastefully 
adorned with flags of all nations. At the side of each plate 
was laid a copy of the programme, the menu, and a buttonhole 
bouquet. After full justice had been done to the menu, prepared 
by Mr. John M(;Cabe, and which, with one accord, all pronounced 
most excellent. Dr. B. H. Throop, the president of the evening, 
announced that, as the inner man had been satisfied, the time 
had arrived for the commencement of festivities, and requested 
A. H. Winton, Esq., to proceed with the programme. 

A. H. Winton, toast-master, said, — 

Gentlemen op the Bar, Fellow-Citizens, and Invited 



APPEN'DIX. 517 

Guests, — On the night of our great voting contest among 
ourselves, when immense majorities came pouring in from all 
directions, and assuring us that the proposed new county of 
Lackawanna was carried almost unanimously, the roaring artil- 
lery, the clanging bells, and the glad shouts of a long-suffering 
but then delighted multitude, only feebly expressed our joy at 
the consummation of our most darling wishes. 
We will drink our first toast, 

LACKAWANNA COUNTY. 

and call upon Edward Merrifield to respond. Mr. Merrifield 
responded in excellent taste, but as much of his speech is em- 
bodied in his history of the county we omit it. 

Mr. Winton. — We call upon Judge Stanley Woodward to 
respond to the toast, 

OUR INVITED GUESTS. 

{Prolonged applause.) 

Mr. Woodward : 

Mv. Chairman and Gentlemen, — This is a day for congratula- 
tion, and I have thought while sitting here that I would begin at 
the beginning, and would congratulate the people and bar of 
Lackawanna County, not only upon the present condition and 
prospect of the county, but also upon the happy auspices under 
which it first saw the light. Fortunately for me, my duty 
in that respect has been anticipated by my learned friend, Mr. 
Merrifield. But it must be evident to all from his remarks 
that the birth of Lackawanna County was virtuous and pure. 
{Applause.) It came in wedlock, and was not born out of wed- 
lock. No dishonesty was used to produce Lackawanna County, 
but, on the contrary, it was the outgrowth of public sentiment, 
yet stimulated by public and private means. Therefore, I con- 
gratulate you upon the glory of your beginning. {Applause.) 

When I received from the commissioners of the county my 
first invitation to be present to-day at the laying of the corner- 
stone of your new court-house, something was said about Lu- 
zerne County being the mother-county. And the use of this 
term suggested to ni}' mind several ideas, and one of these ideas 
was this: that it was rather strange that the people of Lacka- 
wanna County should call upon Luzerne as their mother to 



518 APPENDIX. 

rejoice with them to-dtiy or to-night. Why ? You call upon us 
to congratulate not only you, but ourselves, upon the breaking- 
up of the family. You left the family and went out to seek 
your own fortunes. We were not in favor of peaceable seces- 
sion, but were thorough Union men. You wei-e opposed to 
union, and you have succeeded. I can't say it was an elopement. 
In the first place j'ou did not go off and join yourself to some- 
bod}' else; you didn't bitch yourself upon some other county. 
It was a peaceable secession — an independent one. In the 
second place, as I understand it, you didn't go off suddenly or 
by night, or without notice {applause), and it was not an elope- 
ment, therefore, in any sense. We received from time to time 
notice of your going before you went {applause and laughter), 
and from time to time we put sprags in the progress of 
your departure, until we run out of sprags. {.Laughter and 
applause.) 

But as the mother-county, if I may be so bold as to represent 
to any extent her sentiments to-night, I say to j^ou that we da 
congratulate j-ou. {Applause.) We feel as proud of j'ou as a 
natural mother feels when the boys and the girls do well. 

A new court-house, such as you are going to build, is an 
emblem and a type of your perseverance and your pluck. I 
understand it is built on a swamp, a sort of swamp-angel, but I 
hear, also, it is founded upon a rock, and is going to rise above 
the mists and miasma, with healing upon its wings. And per- 
haps a court-house, more than any other structure, does repre- 
sent the civilization and morals of a community. It speaks for 
law, and order, and justice, and is a fair expression and exponent 
of the culture and thrift of the people who build it. 

The goddess who holds the scales of justice should have a 
shrine worthy of her purity and suitable for her purposes. If 
she is to keep the balances and hold any equipoise, her eyes 
must be kept clear of dust, her lungs well fed with pure air, 
and her sense of smell unoffended by the incense of unclean 
odors. 

There can be no rivalry and nothing but friendship between 
Lackawanna County and Luzerne County. {Applause.) Our 
great veins of anthracite run more nearly north and south than 
east or west, uiid therefore we may alvvays work in our great 



APPENDIX. 519 

source of wealth on the same line. If it were otherwise, if our 
veins lay east and west, across instead of along our pathwa}^, we 
should always be blasting at the same breasts, and should finally 
blow ourselves up. As it is, we can work in harmony. Your 
Lackawanna Eiver flows peacefully and quietly into our Susque- 
hanna, and notwithstanding the fact that they have different 
sources and different names, they flow at last to the one great 
ocean. And so Lackawanna County and Luzerne County, 
divided in name, different in origin, bounded by different lines, 
are still moving onward with one purpose and to one destin}', the 
proudest territorial portion of the Keystone State. {Prolonged 
applause.) 

Mr. Winton. — Now, gentlemen, there is one man, the Hon. J. 
A. Scranton, our member of Congress, we would like to hear, 
but he is away. I have no letter. He is trying to make the 
Susquehanna River navigable. When he gets through with 
that, I hope he will tackle the Lackawanna, so we can easily 
steam up to Carbondale and see those men who voted with us 
on the new county; and in his absence the next toast, 

OUR SISTER-COUNTIES AND OUR COUNTRY, 

will be responded to by the Hon. W. H. Jessup. 

Judge Jessup : 

Mr. President, — If my friend. Judge Rice, thinks that "The 
Commonwealth" is a very broad subject to engage your atten- 
tion, what must be my feelings when called to respond, not only 
to all the counties, but to our common country? {Laughter.') 

Why, I feel, Mr. Chairman, very much as that good lady who- 
removed to the West expressed herself when, at the first broody 
clucking of her hen in the spring, she surrounded her with three" 
or four dozen eggs and said to her, "Now, old hen, you came 
West, and this is a growing community, and you must spread 
yourself" {Applause and laughter.) 

But what is a country? It is not the inanimate rock, it is 
not the black diamonds that lie buried in your valleys; it is not 
the ore in your hills, the precious metals in your mountains, nor 
the gold in their sands. Your country and my country are the 
men and women that adorn it. {Applause.) Look upon yon 
uninhabited island, and it is no countrv. It is mind, it is Intel- 



520 APPENDIX. 

lect, brain-power, that make a country; and to make that 
country one and indivisible, that intellect, that brain-power 
must be fully developed in the right dii-ection, and it is to that 
point I desire for a moment to call your attention. The devel- 
opment of the men and women of the country makes the 
country. This, our beloved country, created on the principle of 
freedom of conscience, baptized in the blood of martyrs, growing 
strong in its very infancy and almost springing into mature man- 
hood, increasing beyond the nations in former ages, and coming, 
in its first century, into a second baptism of fire and blood, be- 
cause forgetful of the principles upon which it was founded, has 
come forth now pure, now tried in the furnace, and purified as 
by fire. (Applause.) And as our country is composed of men, 
so, my fellow-citizens, the future of our country depends upon 
you and upon me. It will be what we and others like us, its 
citizens, make it. Do we wish a country lasting? Let us re- 
member the foundation-stones. Let us build upon the triple 
base of Purity, Patriotism, and Virtue, and we may build a 
tower which shall grow, and grow, and grow, until the ages 
grow gray and hoary, and it shall still grow onward and upward. 
No storms shall uproot it, and no tempests shall cause it to 
totter. {Applause.) But when we forget the foundation-stones, 
when political impurity and corruption shall be gnawing like a 
canker-worm at the basis of our institutions, when fraud and 
corruption shall stalk abroad in high places, when impurity shall 
pervade our private and social circles, when justice shall lie 
prostrate in our streets, then look to see the glorious tower of 
our liberty totter and fall, and we be numbered with the nations 
of the distant past, whose monuments are warnings to us of their 
ruin, and among whose sepulchres we are to-day excavating and 
bringing to light the foundations whereupon they builded, and 
seeing by what means thej^ fell. 

Let us learn the lessons of the past. Let us have a strong 
desire to preserve our institutions ; let us be men of purity, men 
of justice, men of virtue, and we may hope to see our country a 
pure, and a happy, and a lasting one. (Applause.) 

Tbe president moved three cheers, which were given 

Music — " Star-Spangled Banner." 

Mr. Winton. — The next toast is, 



Al'l'ENDlX. 521 



OUR MILITARY, 

" The pride of our StiUe — may we never need their j)rowe88." 
I presume that refers to the old song, 

"We'll have no fighting men abroad, 
No weeping maids at home." 

Colonel H. M. Boies : 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, — I never was called upon 
to respond to so warlike a toast in so solemn a frame of mind 
us I am after listening to this anthem. Nor was I ever called 
up before in the presence of so man}^ judges, and I sincerel}' 
trust I never may be again. I don't propose to spread myself 
all over the military question of the country to-night. I sup- 
pose, perhaps, it was intended I should limit myself to the 
National Guard of the State of Pennsylvania {applause), which 
has become in these later years renowned, not only in our own 
State, but all over the country, for the perfection of its organi- 
.zation, for the completeness of its equipment, and for the excel- 
lence of its drill. And perhaps, to narrow the subject down a 
Jittle more, I might confine myself nioi'e particularl}- to that 
part of it which stands, we are all proud to feel, in the very 
front of the National Guai-d of Pennsylvania; that part of it 
which is comprehended within the limits of our own county. 
(Applause.') I say this with all deference to our Wilkes Barrc 
friends, who are present as our guests. In listening to what has 
been said in regard to the tremendous struggle which preceded 
the organization and birth of Lackawanna County, a struggle 
which lasted through fort}' years, the length of time the chil- 
dren of Israel Avandered in the desert, during which a whole 
generation of men wasted themselves away in the painful effort 
to achieve success in vain, my mind reverted to the time of the 
organization of the Scranton City Guard. And there is a very 
significant fact in this connection. After all this vain struggle 
and this waste of resources which has been referred to, it was 
not until the city of Scranton, by her courageous mayor and 
those historic forty men, quenched the incipient fires of com- 
munism in our streets; it was not until Scranton had demon- 
sti'ated to the Slate that she was able to take care of herself, 



622 APPENDIX. 

and, moreover, had proved conclusively by the formution of the 
Scranton City Guard that she intended to take care of herself 
in the future ; it was not until this time that the Legislature of 
our State was influenced to grant our petition. (Applause.) 

As soon as our organization had been formed — and I want to- 
call your attention to this fact — gentlemen began to come up 
here from Luzerne to look over the Scranton City Guard, — 
Major Espy, Major-General Osborne, at that time the chief 
military dignitary of this section, and our honorable friend, 
Judge Woodward, who was then nothing but a colonel, I believe 
(applause) ; and it is a remarkable fact that after they had been 
here the opposition to the new-county project began to weaken. 
What report they took back, unless it was that of the emis- 
saries that Moses sent out to view the promised land, that they 
had seen the sons of Anak there, and verily we were as grass- 
hoppers in their eyes, and so we were in our own eyes. (Laugh- 
ter.) Whether they took back this report or not, I cannot say, 
but it is certain when the project next came before the Legisla- 
ture our opponents appeared to have become suddenly very 
weak-kneed and inefficient, and Lackawanna County sprang 
into existence perfect, complete, and full-armed, like Minerva 
from the head of Jove. 

Now, this leads me back to the original thought with which 
I started, and that is, that the object, and aim, and scope of the 
National Guard is towards the triumphs of peace, and not of 
war. The influences which the Scranton City Guard had upon 
the formation of the new county were silent and unobserved, 
but they were powerful and irresistible as those magic influences 
of nature which are now bursting the seed and swelling the 
branch, but with a force sufficient for rending the eternal rocks 
asunder. We have listened to-day with delight to the grand antl 
eloquent panegyric which our honoi-ed Judge Hand has delivered 
upon the majesty and dignity of the law. But the wisest law, 
the ablest administration of the law is vain, and weak, and 
powerless as the wind, unless there stands behind the law an 
ever-present, palpable, and sufficient power to execute it. And 
it is this that is the sphere of the National Guard. It is not 
only its sphere, its scope, and its plan, but it is at the same time 
its weakness, for as it exists to maintain peace and order, its 



APPENDIX. 52it 

very success destroys the apparent necessity for its existence. 
When war's alarm is shaking the land, when our country's gov- 
ernment is trembling against the advance of the foe, there is 
scarcely "a man with soul so dead" who does not feel the fire 
of patriotism burning in his breast, and is not inspired to deeds 
of valor; but in time of peace, when there is no apparent neces- 
sity for military organization, it is a difficult thing to bring men 
up and keep them up to that point of patriotism which is neces- 
sary to sustain the National Guard, and I wish to impress this 
upon your minds, because there are many here to-night who are 
largely employers of men of my command. Now, if we can 
get these men into the National Guard and induce them, by 
inspiring their patriotic motives, to devote the time and labor 
that is necessary to sustain it, we should b}' all means do so. 
Because at the present time there seems no necessity for this 
service, encourage them in every way to devote the time that 
is necessary to discharge their duty rather than restrain them 
from devoting this time to it. 

The greatest benefit the National Guard can bestow upon this 
community, and upon the State, and upon the country is the 
prevention of the evils which we dread. Thei-efore, it should 
be sustained, and therefore I appeal to you to sustain it in the 
future as you have in the past. (Applause.) 

The president called for three cheers for the National Guard, 
Avhich were lustily given. 



Mr. Winton. — I call upon one of our most promising young 
attorneys, whose clarion tones are heard daily in our courts, 
Mr. John F. Connolly. (Applause.') 

Mr. Connolly : 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, — I hardly consider it proper 
that a member of the bar should be called upon to respond to 
this toast. You all know, if there is any failing in the world 
that lawyers have, particularly the younger ones, it is to be 
egotistical. And I am afraid that the member of the bar called 
upon to respond to this toast is liable to fall into this error, hence 
I think the person who responds to it should be very guarded in 
his remarks. I would say, as far as the junior bar of Lackuwanna 



524 APPENDIX. 

County is concerned, that it is second to none in the State — in 
size. {Laughter and applause,) Many of the young gentlemen 
who are classed among the junior members of the bar are men of 
great learning and ability. I am touching upon the egotistical 
part now. If any of the rising towns out West are short of law- 
yeva, all they have to do is to call upon the bar of Lackawanna 
County, and we will honor their draft with either young or old. 

It is true, as has been remarked by Judge Hand, that some- 
times the junior members of the bar are somewhat impulsive. It 
is also very annoying for the Court to listen to the simplest 
principles and propositions of law they learned in their early 
days advanced by the juniors with eloquence and vehemence. 
But the argus-eye of the watchful client is on the budding 
counsellor, and he must do his duty — his whole duty. But, you 
must understand, the young members of the bar are eager to 
earn a fee. They are anxious to make a reputation and satisfy 
their clients, and in nine cases out of ten the class of clients 
who employ young attorneys are satisfied if they only "spread 
themselves." {Applause.) 

It reminds me of a little anecdote I once heard. A j'oung 
man, who was about to let the mantle of his father, who was an 
old lawyer, fall upon him, began to ask his sire what he should 
do in case certain things occurred. He sa3'8, "For instance, if 
law is on my side and justice is against me, what shall I do ?" 
" Why," said his father, "advocate the majesty and maintenance 
of the law, though the heavens fall." "But," saj's he, "father, 
suppose justice is upon my side and the laio against me, what 
shall I do ?" " Why," he says, " argue in favor of justice, though 
it cause a revolution." " But," he saj's, " suppose neither law nor 
justice is upon my side, what shall I do?" "Well," he says, 
" paw the air and talk around it." 

That, gentlemen, is the unfortunate condition the junior mem- 
bers of the bar are placed in. Tlie}' are generally given the 
cases in which they must do the " pawing" and " talking 
around," while the cunning old seniors look on and laugh, and 
never for an instant think of the time when they were juniors. 
Just where the " line of demarkation" — as the lawyers put it — 
is drawn between the junior and the senior members of the bar 
is more than I can tell. 



APPENDIX. 525 

Now, considerable has been said here, and said with truth, 
about the bar of old Luzerne. That it stood foremost amon-,^ 
the bars of the State of Pennsylvania is, as I understand it, a 
conceded fact. Some of the ablest jurists that Pennsylvania 
ever boasted of were members of the Luzerne bar, and I am 
proud to say that all the senior members of the Scranton bar, 
and a great many of the juniors, once belonged to, and yet, at 
times, grace that bar with their presence. (Applause.) 

I regret that some member of the senior bar who is not a 
comparative stranger among us did not respond to the preced- 
ing toast. The gentleman who eloquently responded has been 
hei-e but a short time, and the task of answering for the seniors 
should not have been imposed upon him. Yet he did it so well, 
I feel that I must thank him in their name. 

It is no easy matter to become a lavvyer. It may be an eas}' 
matter for a young man with an ordinaiy education and ordi- 
nary ability, to be admitted to the bar. But thei-e is a good 
deal of difference between being admitted to the bar and becom- 
ing a lawyer. The young man who starts out in life with the 
idea of getting admitted to the bar and stopping there, falls very 
far short of reaching the mark. The young lawj-er who propose-* 
to succeed in his profession must be incessant in his labors, and 
he must be a man of ability. His work may be compared to 
that of the clock. It must be work without haste, work without 
rest. Unless he does that — unless he works without haste and 
works without rest — he will never attain to that pinnacle of 
fame to which manj' of the senior members of the old Luzerne 
bar have attained. (Applause.) 

On behalf of the bar of Lackawanna County, although they 
are quite numerous, I will say we have among them men ot' 
ability, men of energy, and, above all, men of integrity. (Aj'- 
plause.) 

A man who has not integrity, his ability amounts to nothing- 
as a lawyer, because if a man is not truthful and honest — honesi 
to himself, honest to his clients, honest to the Court — he nevei- 
can, he never will, succeed as a lawyer. (Applause.) I may say 
for the young men of the bar that they must generally bear ail 
the rebukes and rebuffs of the Court, and when there is any 
"sitting-down-upon" to be done by the Court, it generally falls 



526 APPENDIX. 

to the unhappy lot of the unfortunate junior, whose client is 
waiting and listening in some pi'ominent part of the court-room, 
read}- to seal his doom unless he comes up to said client's fancied 
standard. And all the while the young man is quoting " horn- 
book" law, and the Court is incensed. 

I say it with pardonable pride, that the junior — and I might 
include a majorit}' of the senior — bar of Lackawanna County are 
straightforward, honest, honorable men. Their escutcheon is as 
yet unblemished and untarnished, and I trust it will remain so, 
and in that temple of Justice, the corner-stone of which was laid 
to-day, may they carve their way to fame and fortune. And in 
a few years I trust that the bar of Lackawanna County may 
not only be the first in Pennsylvania, but the first in the Union. 

Mr. Winton. — Nearly nine years ago I stood in the city of 
Philadelphia, in the hall of that convention composed of consti- 
tutional tinkers, and sitting there I heard two men advocate 
Lackawanna County. It was the day when Lewis Pughe and 
A. B. Dunning made their famous speeches in our behalf. (-4/)- 
plause.) Looking with eyes toward the future, I was satisfied 
that that was the stepping-stone, and I said, " Oh I my prophetic 
soul, mine uncle I" (Laughter and applause.) 

And now, to respond to the toast of 

OUR CONSTITUTION, 

I call upon a man who has held the laboring-oar for thirty years, 
A. B. Dunning. (^Applause.') 

Mr. Dunning : 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, — I feel a pride to-night in 
meeting my old associates in this new-county fight that I am 
sure I will be unable to express. After the many speeches we 
have heard, and the manner in which this whole question has 
been discussed, I feel as though there was no ground for me to 
stand upon. \n fact, my friend Merrifield carried the fortress in 
the outset. (^Applause.) But, gentlemen, I never saw the hour 
during the last thirty-five years that I was not a new-county 
man. Now, that is a good ways back. Thirty years ago I was 
elected to the Legislature, a young man, and the only reason I 
consented to be a candidate, leaving my business and going to 
the Legislature for $3 a day — that was the sum-total paid, and 



APPENDIX. 527 

if you stayed over 100 days you got $1.50. and no more — wus be- 
cause of the interest I felt in Lackawanna County. 1 had been 
familiar with the fight from its inception. I remember well 
when it was raised, and William Merrifield, the father of the 
gentleman who introduced the topic here to-night, was elected 
to the Legislature, and nearly gave us a county. I don't propose 
to say much about what was done by our friends in the lower 
end at that time, but the defeat of the measure was one of the 
smart things they did. But taking the thing all the way along, 
step by step, I look around me to-night and see gentlemen who 
stood shoulder to shoulder with me in the Legislature and else- 
where giving material aid. Dr. Throop spent two entire winters 
there, giving most valuable assistance. I was fortunate enough 
always to pass the bill in the House, and recollect, the second 
time it was passed, we had so strong an assurance that it was 
going through the Senate that my friend Throop, in the full con- 
fidence that the thing was accomplished, gave what you may 
■call a little blow-out. He gave a banquet to tiie friends of the 
bill that cost him two or three hundred dollars, thus showing 
the interest he felt on the subject. But I cannot enumerate the 
mtmy who have given years of service and means to this long- 
<;on tinned struggle. None among them all, however, were more 
liberal than Dr. Throop, and Col. Ira Tripp, both of whom have 
kept open house at Harrisburg entire sessions, and their well- 
known liberalit}' tells the story, so far as expense goes. " All is 
well that ends well." The struggle is over, and we meet here 
to-night to shake hands over the bloodless chasm, old and new- 
county friends to rejoice together. I have the most kindly recol- 
lections of old mother Luzerne, and many of her worthy sons 
^re bidding us Grod-speed in our departure from the old hearth- 
rsione. 

The lateness of the hour admonishes me to be brief. I will 
therefore come at once to the toast — " The Constitution, the 
«tepping-stone to the new county." I need not tell 3'ou, gentle- 
men, that constitutions are the fundamental principles or rules 
for the government of states or nations, dating back many cen- 
turies, finding especial voice in Magna Charta, when the Englisb 
Barons in the thirteenth century forced from King John t~« 
gieat charter restraining monarchy and enlarging the rights of 



528 APPENDIX. 

the people against kingly tyranny ; that Magna Charta found ite^ 
way across the mighty deep in the '' Mayflower," its principles 
taliing root in the virgin soil on this side of the Atlantic, grow- 
ing and spreading until it culminated in the sanguinary struggle 
of the Revolution, which gave to us the Constitution of 1788, 
being the first charter of human liberty ever given to an abso- 
lutely free people ; nor how in the progress of events, like the 
rapidly-growing boy, the people became too large for their 
clothes, and Uncle Samuel's pants were found so short that in^ 
1837-38 it required material for a larger pattern. 

Good Uncle Samuel, finding himself and family so well dressed 
in the new suit, felt an inspiration for greater deeds and broader 
enterprise. A forward movement is ordered along the line. 
Coal is mined, canals were dug, railroads constructed, factories 
were built, forges and furnaces, from their thousand stacks, sent 
their leaping flames toward the heavens, and the busy hum of 
industry filled the land with joyful sounds. 

But history repeats itself. In 1873 the fashions were found 
so changed that the garment must be revised, and, "Eureka!" 
in one of the pockets, safely tucked away, is found our Magna 
Charta, inscribed " Lackawanna County," the corner-stone of 
whose temple of Justice was laid to-day, or, possibly, it may be 
the "stepping-stone" referred to in the toast to which I am 
attempting to respond. 

Now, gentlemen, I fear I have alread}' wearied you, and, 
knowing you are anxious to listen to the gentlemen who are to 
follow me, without dwelling upon our long-continued struggle 
before success crowned our eff'orts, our hopes, our fears, or speak- 
ing of the treason of pretended friends, or after, how the heart 
was made sick by hope deferred, the object of our eff'orts so near 
at times, and, ah! so fur, I will close by returning my sincere 
thanks for your kindness in recognizing me as one of the humble 
workers in the cause we all had so much at heart. 

Music — Overture, " Aurora." 

Mr. Winton. — There is one man here among us who seems to 
like Wilkes Barre, and has some cases down there. I will now 
ask him to speak to the toast, 



APPENDIX. 529 

OUR MANUFACTURING INTERESTS. 

Mr. W. W. Scranton : 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen. — When the new county was 
first talked about, they came to me and said it was a great thing 
for manufacturing interests. They said law was going to bo 
cheap. I have tried it a good deal since then, but I think the} 
jnade a mistake in that. 

Now, I don't hold myself as a great many do about the town, 
but it seems to me that this community is based principally upon 
the raining of coal — half of it depends upon it. Now these mines 
are being woi-ked out more and more, and, in my mind, it is not 
going to be forever. It will not be one hundred years before 
these are all worked out. To me it seems that a gi-eat man}- of 
us here are going to live to see the time when the growth of 
this town, so far as it depends upon mining, is not going to 
increase. When that time comes, we have got to fall back upon 
something else. It seems to me that we ought to provide for 
that beforehand, and provide, as far as possible, for our manufac- 
turing interests. For that, we want good government; we 
want law and order; we want moderate taxation. If you will 
give us these things, we will jorosper and foster these little 
industries, and in our time we will take cai-e of you. (Applause.) 

Mr. Winton. — Now we come to a mighty power, 

the press, 

and, to respond, we have one of its brightest ornaments — a man 
who was ever ready at Harrisburg to send therefrom at mid- 
night the breeziest news in our behalf, making the long fingers 
of the telegraph click out our successes; always ready here at 
home, also, to assist us. I call upon the Hon. J. E. Barrett. 

Mr. Barrett : 

Me. Chairman and Gentlemen, — I have been admonished by 
our worthy chairman that, as the hour is well advanced, those 
who have long speeches to make would do well to cut them 
short. I am further admonished by the frequent visits of the 
"printer's devil," who has been flitting in and out during the 
evening for copy, that the paper will go to press very soon ; 
therefore, I must be brief Besides, it is rather dangerous for the 
84 



530 APPENDIX. 

press, in the presence of so man}- judges and lawj^ers, to be too 
free witn Its utterances and opinions, as every careful editor 
must always keep in mind the fact that caution is quite as essen- 
tial as courage, since we have such a thing as a stringent libel 
law in Pennsj'lvania. I am pleased to know, however, that in 
•ease I should be arraigned in a temple of Justice for anything 
uttered in this presence, I could bring up my case in banc, as I 
believe we have a full bench here this evening, in which I have 
full confidence. Gentlemen, it has been said frequently that the 
press is the great lever in the world's progress; such I hope it 
will continue, playing its part in the world's history side by side 
with law and justice. In returning from the ceremony of laying 
the corner-stone of our new court-house this afternoon, after 
standing in the rain, unconscious of the discomfort of the 
weather because of the great pleasure afforded in listening to 
Judge Hand's admirable address, I fell in with a friend who told 
me that he had often skated over the site selected for our temple 
of Justice, and that he had also, on many occasions, caught bull- 
heads there. This suggested to my mind a pleasant possibility. 
We all know that most lawyers and many judges are fond of the 
good old sport with which the name of Izaak Walton is insepa- 
rably connected, and it occurred to my mind just then that for a 
trifling outlay the county commissioners might provide for ex- 
cellent fishing on the bench. It would be a most agreeable way 
to var}' the monotony if the judges could drop a line into the 
basement and enjoy themselves piscatorially in capturing an 
occasional bull-head, while the intelligent jury, under the som- 
nolent effect of some great advocate's plea, went in quest of 
pastoral pleasures to the land of Nod. 

But, as the press plays its part in the domain of progress, I 
don't propose that one of its humble representatives will bore 
you this evening with a tedious dissertation. The press, what- 
ever else may be its shortcomings, is never at a loss to give 
advice to judges, lawyers, governors, presidents, and emperors. 
It can dictate a policy for the Peruvians that would discount all 
the efi'orts of Blaine or Shipherd, and although the North Pole 
has never been discovered, it can tell exactly how it can be done. 
And need you wonder at this, when the electricity of the world 
is the servant of the press, and through the still hours of night 



APPENDIX. 531 

becomes the subtle courier that cai-rics information from the 
uttermost ends of the earth, to add to our stock of knowledge 
at the breakfast-table? With the electric telegraph and the 
press, those twin-ministers of light and liberty, error is impossi- 
ble, and tyranny becomes a monster of such hideous mien " as 
to be hated needs but to be seen." The pi*ess needs no praise ; it 
is its own best eulogist, and I trust that in the future of Lacka- 
wanna County it will be found aiding the right. It was my 
pleasure to see at Harrisburg, during the progress of our new- 
county bill, several of the faces that grace this festive board. 
They were always zealous and energetic in the interest of the 
people of this section. In those days we all realized, more 
fully than at any other time, the value of a friendly press, and 
it was always a pleasure to me to meet a newspaper editor or 
correspondent whom I could convince of the justice of our side. 
As the press of Lackawanna has stood by the new county at its 
birth, and as it stands by it now, so, I trust, it will be found 
advocating its interests in all time to come; advocating an up- 
right judiciary and the fearless administration of the law, and 
always raising its voice 

" 'Gainst the wrung that needs resistance, 
For the cause that lacks assistance, 
For the future in the distance, 
And the good that it can do." 

{Applause.) 

Mr. Winton.— I now call upon Mr. E. P. Kingsbury for 

OUR CITY. 

Mr. Kingsbury : 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, — I appreciate the honor con- 
ferred upon me in being requested to respond to the toast, '-The 
City of Scranton, the third in this Commonwealth," but it is 
hard for me to understand why I should have been selected for 
this response, unless because it is customary lo go to the "oldest 
inhabitants" for information, always being ready to make due 
allowance for their old age, general debility, and the consequent 
loss of a portion of their mental fticulties. (Applause.) This 
may explain it, and, explaining it, will at the same lime account 
for the feebleness of my effort. 



532 APPENDIX. 

Scranton is properlj^ named, perpetuating as it does the 
names and memories of the gentlemen who planted here the 
seeds of industry, watering the soil with their wealth, practical 
knowledge, and personal zeal, causing to spring forth from the 
wilderness of a few years ago this city, now the third in popu- 
lation in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 

But is it the third in population only? I think not. Could 
good Uncle Joseph Albright whisper in your eai's the total 
shipments of coal during the past year in his department; could 
Brother Storrs, from the stores of his memory, tell you his 
story for the year 1881 ; and, following him, the genial gentle- 
man from the old town of Gibsonburg, who thinks well enough 
of our city to invest largely here in real-estate, relate to you in 
the "Jermyn" dialect "what he knows about coal-mining," to 
say nothing of what could be added by the almost endless num- 
ber of smaller operators who are " Connellizing" here (applause), 
I have a notion that Scranton would rank well as the third city 
of Pennsylvania in this particular. We might go on and speak 
of our iron-mills and steel-works, our blast-furnaces, machine- 
shops, and silk-mills, and many other branches of mechanical 
industry, and thus show that we can, with much reason, lay 
claim to being the third, city of our State in this particular also. 
There are some things we may well be proud of as a city. We 
are well governed, and good order, peace, and quietness prevail 
to a greater extent than in any other city of its size I know of. 
I doubt whether there is a city, in or out of our State, with so 
laro-e a population, where crime and lawlessness exists to a lesser 
degree than here, and where so small a police force is necessary 
to maintain good order. {Applause.) When we consider the 
ra])idity of our growth, this is truly remarkable. Why, so late 
as 1852, and even later, I think, the voters of what was then 
called Harrison (now Scranton) had to go to Hyde Park to vote, 
and the whole of them put together could be crowded into one 
of our street cars. Yet at the last charter election, in February 
last, when our excellent mayor was re-elected, nearly seven 
thousand votes were polled. 

Again, we should congratulate ourselves upon the state of our 
finances, our city debt, after deducting assets, being but about 
S260,000. This, certainly, as compared with cities of like pop- 



APPENDIX. 533 

ulation, is not formidable — ccirtainly not t'oriniduble unough to 
forbid its reasonal)le increase for the purpose of properl}' paving 
Lackawanna Avenue. 

Again, Scranton, as a city, may be ])roud of its banks and 
banking institutions ; for there is to-da}' on deposit in them, 
subject to check, over $3,500,000, and not one of these institu- 
tions but that can easily and promptly meet every one of its 
obligations. How well I remember when yon First National 
commenced business in a little frame buihliiig (half the dimen- 
sions of this room) on Lackawanna Avenue, and the cashier 
daily placing all the valuables of the bank in a tin box 7 x 9, and 
depositing it for safe-keeping in the vault of Mason, Meylert & 
Co. It would take a pretty good-sized vault to hold them now. 

But, Mr. Chairman, time will not permit me to say more as 
to the present proud position that our city occupies, or to give 
more than a passing allusion to the splendid future which seems 
opening up before her, and I will conclude with the sentiment, 
" The Cit}' of Scranton, now the third in the Commonwealiii : 
ma}' the rapidity of her gi-owth, and her successes in the pa^t, 
be an earnest of her glory in the future," only adding that, 
while in many things she is the third in our Commonwealth, in 
others she is first, for no other city can boast of as big and 
irregular paving-stones as Lackawanna Avenue can show, nor 
of mud as deep and thick as can be found on Wyoming. {Ap- 
plause.') 

Music. — PhuUalion Medley. 

Mr. Winton. — Out in Covington Township there lives a family 
60 highly i-espectable, so esteemed, that we delight to honor the 
very name. I call upon Mr. T. H. Dale to respond to the toast, 

OCR COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. 

Mr. Dale : 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, — I rather suspect that a 
shrewd man, one who was engaged in commercial interests, 
could take the self-congratulations and self-praise we have in- 
dulged in to-night and discount it fifty per cent., and then liuve 
a very reasonable capital to start the new county. (Applause.) 

When the author Hawthorne was requested to respond to a 
toast at a banquet given by the Lord Mayor of Tjondon, he was 



534 APPENDIX. 

greatly agitated, and sought the counsel of a friend as to what 
be should do. The friend's advice was this, that when he was 
called upon he must certainly rise to his feet, or else the assem- 
bled guests would think be was a fool and did not know enough 
to say anything, but after he had risen to his feet he must say 
just as little as possible, or else the same guests would think he 
was a fool, and did not know when he had said enongb. T was 
reminded of this incident by the fact that when your genial 
Toast-Master notified me that, as President of the Board of 
Trade, I would be expected to respond to the toast " Our Com- 
mercial Interests," he was particularly emphatic that I should 
be very brief and not say very much, just as though our com- 
mercial interests were a sort of pigmy affair, and could be readily 
handled in a speech of two or three minutes. 

Now, if I may be allowed to use a paradox, commercial inter- 
ests first made Scranton, and then Scranton made its commercial 
interests. For before Scranton was, before it had assumed its 
present stately proportions and " magnificent distances," as so 
graphically described by Mr. Kingsbury in responding to the 
toast " Our City," and long before an}' lawyers were here to give 
a banquet, " commercial interests" in the persons of the Messis. 
Scrantons had sought it out ; and the company ibey organized 
turned out to be the foundation for that which has since become 
Scranton City, with all its varied industries, and all its extended 
business interests. I know, sir, that in the flight of time man\- 
things we ought to remember sink out of sight, and the year?* 
close over them, but there are some things that remain visible 
across the years ; and so it is that to-night I desire to pay tribute 
to the indomitable perseverance, to the will, the pluck, and the 
energy of these pioneers in our commercial interests, and to 
assert that their methods have been adopted, and have become 
characteristic of those who have since developed our commercial 
industries. And it is worthy of mention that if our town is 
noted for any one thing above another, it is for the push, and the 
vim, and the energy of those having in charge our commercial 
interests, and out of this vim and this push has sprung that of 
which we are so justly proud, the present flattering condition 
and position of our business interests. {Applause.) I feel, too, 
that credit should not be withheld from othei'S who have aided 



APPENDIX. 535 

in building up our industries and our business enterprises — 
manufacturers, bankers, merchants, even lawyers ; all have done 
their share, and all deserve credit. I shall not even omit a 
somewhat noted character, residing on our side of the river, 
who some time since started a store in one of the back streets 
of our city, and who was inclined to boast a gi'eat deal about 
the wonderful stock of goods he was canying, and the large 
business he was doing, and who, on one occasion, after expati- 
ating largely upon his great purchases, declared he had "ever}-- 
thing in the hardware line except molasses." {Laughter.) 

Well, sir, out of these efforts has grown a commercial interest 
that to-day is represented by over 850 firms doing business iiere, 
by $7,000,000 invested in iron- and steel-works, by over $6,000,000 
invested in merchandise, and over $4,000,000 invested in other 
industries and other enterprises, making in all over $17,000,000 
invested in business, exclusive of the great railroad and coal 
corporations centring here. 

I ought not to omit to mention something of the wonderful 
growth of these corpoi-ate interests, but 1 am admonished that 
one cannot treat this subject in a five minutes' speech, and so I 
will simply take the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Eail- 
i-oiui Company, and let that company illusti-ate what all these 
com])anies are doing in the way of developing our commercial 
interests. There was shipped from this region by the Delaware, 
Lackawanna and Western Railroad in 1852 (the first full year 
of coal shipments by this road) 67,487 tons of anthracite coa!'„ 
and this amount has gone on increasing year by year until in, 
1881 this road shipped the enormous amount of 4,511,636 tona 
of coal. To accomplish this result, there has been added to its; 
])roperty coal-mine after coal-mine, and to its system of roads 
railroad after railroad, until to-day it is one of the largest and 
strongest corporate interests in our country. And the progress 
of the coal industry as shown by this company can also be 
applied to a greater or lesser extent to other companies doing- 
business in this region. The marvellous development of the coal 
industry has naturally and rapidly developed our general com- 
mercial interests ; and in the words of Mr. Storrs, the general 
coal-agent of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Company,, 
"if the time ever comes (as I believe it must s<oon come) wheu 



536 APPENDIX. 

the consumption of coal ovei'takes and equals the production, so 
that there shall be full work for those engaged in the mining 
and shipping of coal, we shall see a degi'ee of prosperity for these 
regions heretofore unsurpassed." (Applause.) 

And now, Mr. Chairman, since this is an occasion for mei-ri- 
ment, and inasmuch as self-congratulations and spread-eagleism 
seem to be the fashion rather than dry figures and statistics, I 
declare to you that while I am neither a prophet nor the son of 
a prophet, I yet indulge the hope that in that future which 
geologists assure us is coming, when the sands of Jersey shall 
have been covered by the waters of the Atlantic, when great 
New York shall have been engulfed, when the huckleberry 
heights of Pocono shall have been submerged, then, sir, will 
come our glory; then our own classic Lackawanna will have 
been made navigable, through an appropriation secured by our 
Congressman, and Scranton will be the metropolis, the beat of 
whose trade-pulsations will be felt to the utmost limits of the 
great Eepublic. {Laughter and applause.) 

Mr. Winton. — Now I come to one of the California pioneei-s. 
I had prepared some remarks, but the best thing I can say is to 
say he was the man in the gap — the Hon. E. H. McKune. 

Mr. McKune : 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, — I feel somewhat out of 
place to-night in responding to the toast, " Our Fire Depart- 
ment." All the other gentlemen that have spoken here this 
evening have spoken upon subjects they are perfectly familiar 
with, but the Toast Committee have placed me upon a different 
ground. I must sa^" this — that this day and this night have 
been among the happy daj^s and nights of my life. {Applause.) 
The da}' of the laying of the corner-stone of the new court-house 
for the County of Lackawanna brings to my mind an incident 
of which I was a participant in 1850, when, standing upon Tele- 
graph Hill, looking down the straits, as the steamer " Oregon" 
entered the gates, and upon her fore-sail was printed in large 
letters, " Califoi'nia — she has been admitted to the Union." We, 
as pioneers in '49, had in convention met and given birth to a 
State, which went foi'th in her full completeness, clothed about 
her loins with the leaves of the vine and fig. Upon her breasts 
sihe bore the sheaves of her bounteous land with sandals of silver. 



APPENDIX. 537 

'Upon her brow she wore a crown of the purest gold. In her 
hands were the products of her vineyards and the fruits of her 
•orchards. As she went forth her path was strewn with flowers 
such as no queen of the earth had ever trodden upon in their 
native beauty. As slie approached the capitol of our countr\-, 
where sat in council the sages of the Union, her strength, 
beauty, and wealth entranced them all. But, alas for the cupidity 
of man. Some of those sages soon raised against her their oppo- 
sition. For she was commissioned to bear to the capitol the 
voice of her people, who, through her constitution, had bade her 
say that they had decreed that all men who stood upon her soil 
should be freemen ; that no blot of slavery should blacken her 
escutcheon. She was the first to enunciate the grand principle 
of " Popular Sovereignty" — that principle that was to bring the 
minds of the sages in conflict. In the council chamber stood, 
pleading her cause, Webster, Dickinson, Benton, Seward, and 
others, while Calhoun and Berrien led on the forces in opposi- 
tion. There she stood for long and weary months, awaiting ])er- 
mission to enter into union with her sister States. She was not 
ashamed of her representatives, for among them was Fremont, 
to the world known as a hardy and successful explorer, who had 
been the first to place the flag of our country upon the peaks of 
the Eocky Mountains, who had secured the friendship of Kit 
Carson and others of those adventurous men who had pas.sed 
beyond the pale of civilization, and had joined their lives and 
fortunes with the red men, who then held almost undisputed 
possession of the vast plains beyond the great rivers. He, better 
than any other man in the countrj", realized the value to the 
Union of the acquisition of California. He plead with the sen- 
ators to go forth with him and stand upon Mount Diablo, and 
look away to the West, aci-oss to the Pacific, and behold, whiten- 
ing her bosom, the great fleet of merchantmen who were bring- 
ing as their lading the products of the lands of China, Japan, 
and the islands of the sea ; and behold, as they enter the portals 
of the Golden Gate, they salute the flag which would represent 
the great country that lay stretched along its thousands of miles, 
until it meets its boundary in the Atlantic Ocean. At the east 
lie the valleys of the Sacramento and San Joaquin, while bej'ond, 
in the forests, were to be seen the great trees — the wonder and 



538 APPENDIX. 

admiration of the world. Still beyond lay the valley of the 
Yosemite, where the travellers of all nations who are permitted 
to enter within its portals stand in astonishment and awe as 
they look around on every side and behold the effect of nature's 
great forces, which has piled cliff on cliff until their lofty peaks 
pierce the clouds, telling to man there is a God, while the 
mountain brooks, leaping along their way and plunging over 
mighty precipices, forming those beautiful cataracts which waft 
forth songs of praise to the bounteous Giver of all good and 
perfect gifts. So great a hei'itage as this great State, without 
money and without price, was never before offered to a nation. 

I thank you, sir, for introducing me as an old Californian 
amid these pioneers of Scranton gathered here this evening, as 
it has revived the memories of those days when I, too, was a 
pioneer. I said that day, when the news arrived that we had 
been admitted to the Union, was a happy day to me. 

And so when we stood there in the Chamber, tallying as we 
did when the vote was carried to 101 on the third reading of the 
new-county bill, that was a happy moment. But there was 
something in the future, — there was an election, — and to-night we 
have no question at all in regard to the future. Thanks to the 
first commissioners of the county of Lackawanna, they have laid 
their ground well, and the noble edifice to be erected is now in 
the hands of their successors, which, I have no doubt, under the 
contractor and the architect, and the vigilant supervision of the 
commissioners, will rise in all its beauty and majesty, so it will 
be an honor not only to our city, but to the Commonwealth and 
to the country. (Applause.) 

Permit me, Mr. President, in behalf of the fire department of 
this city, to thank you for remembering them at this banquet 
and at this time. You citizens of Scranton have as fine an or- 
ganization as there is in the United States, and are you aware, 
fellow-taxpayers of the city of Scranton, that your whole fire 
department of this city costs less money than one-half of the cost 
of a single company in Philadelphia or New York? (Applause.) 
This city is run under the system of cheap government which 
Mr. Scranton referred to, and the fire department has had but 
$5000 yearly appropriation for the last six or seven years, out of 
which they run their steamers and hose-carts, and supply the 



AIM'KNDIX. 531) 

hose, and do the woi-k free for you. I speak to you, gentlemen, 
as representatives of the city of Scranton. Look well to j'our 
interests; instruct your iaw-makers of the city to care well for 
tlie firemen, for the day is fast approaching when the volunteer 
department, if not well cared for, will demand from your handa 
a paid fire department, which will cost you much more than 
the present department costs you now. I speak with some pride 
as a fireman. In 1842 I was elected as a fireman in the village 
of Newburg. It has been my privilege to be a fireman from that 
day until one year ago. Thirty-six years of my life have 1 not 
laid down at night on my bed, or undressed myself, without 
knowing where every piece of clothing I wore, or would be 
compelled to wear if the fire-bell should call me out, was to be 
found. 

I look back over the labors thus performed with feelings of 
deep satisfaction, and, while life is given unto me, expect to do 
all in my humble power for the interests of the volunteer fire- 
men. I feel highly delighted with the banquet, for it has gath- 
ered together some of the pioneers of Scranton, and many of 
the workers in the new-county cause, and all has gone as merry 
as a marriage-bell. 

Mr. Winton. — I call upon Mr. F. J. Fitzsimmons to respond to 
the toast, 

WOMAN. 

Mr. Fitzsimmons : 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, — I will say but a word, 
as I feel much embarrassed in speaking before this audience. I 
am inexperienced and young, yet not so young but that I can 
remember when the Democratic party were successful, and I 
don't think I will have to live much longer to find it successful 
again. (Applause.) 

H: * * * ^ =i; :K * 'i= 

The locomotive, with gleaming eye and thunderous voice, as 
with lightning-speed it annihilates distances, is the grandest of 
objects, but when it jumps the track and is stuck in the mud it 
becomes one of the most despicable and helpless objects that 
can be seen ; yet a woman out of her place — " out of her 
sphere," if you please — is a still more despicable object. In 
some of the Western States, I learn with alarm, she is being 



540 APPENDIX. 

admitted into legal ranks. {Laughter.') While tiie immortal 
G-reeley advised young men to do otherwise, yet my advice to 
lawyers is, "Don't go West." {Laughter and applause.') 

What chance would a most ingenious or eloquent advocate 
have in winning a case before a jury that would be appealed to, 
implored, and their appearances complimented b}^ some fair 
Venus? {Laughter and applause.) 

If it were within the range of possibility that the Court, too, 
would lend a willing ear to her gentle requests, and lean towards 
her in its rulings, it requires no ]>rophetic gift to say, with some 
degree of certainty, that the lawyers of the present may be 
the farmers of the future. It certainly is within the compass 
of possibility that the judiciary might become influenced by her 
wooings. This would be made possible only by the death of 
our present judges. Some judges die, but few- i-esign. They 
will in all probability hold court till the Great Judge sends after 
them to give their proceedings here below a final review. 

Woman has been in all ages the kindling inspiration of patri- 
otism, eloquence, poesy, and song. She watched over our infancy, 
and would not permit the winds of winter to visit us too roughly. 
She is found by the bedside of the sick, administering every 
comfort that the fever-heated brain suggests. She places the 
last wreath of affection on the coflSn-lid and decorates the grave 
with floral offerings. Her tribute of friendship, her mementoes 
of kindness, her deeds of charity, are too numerous to be furthei- 
mentioned at this time. Let us hope that at all times to come 
her virtues may receive from a generous manhood the rewai-d 
the}' so richly deserve, and that the bar of Lackawanna, though 
3'oung in years, yet gi*eat in promise, may not only acquire a 
laudable standing, from a professional standpoint, but that its 
members may alwaj's willingly render their services in defend- 
ing the fortunes and reputations of the sex, on behalf of whom 
I have so poorly responded on this highly sociable and memor- 
able occasion. {Applause.) 

Mr. Winton. — I call upon Mr. S. T. Scranton, who now resides 
in the foreign land of Jei"sey, but who was one of the pioneers 
'of Scranton, and who helped to lay well and deep our sure foot- 
in «>• whereon we have built so well. 



APPENDIX. 541 

Mr. Solden T. Scran ton : 

Mr. Chairman, — It gives me great pleasure to see so many 
citizens of Scranton, a great many of wiiom I esteem as friends. 
At this late hour I cannot expect to detain you, but only rise to 
express my great pleasure in having been here with you on this 
joyous occasion. I can but feel the liveliest interest in the pros- 
perity of this new county of Lackawanna and of this city of 
Scranton. I remember it when there were only seventeen souls 
in this place. I have watched its progress, growth, and pros- 
perity for forty-one years, from the 20th of last August, and 
shall, while life lasts, look upon it with the liveliest interest. I 
wish you all the prosperity and success you are worthy of. 
(Applause.) 

The chairman then called on Colonel Charles Scranton for a 
speech. 

Mr. Charles Scranton : 

Mk. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Lackawanna County 
Bar. the Luzerne County Bar, and all the other "Bars" 
HERE present (Imig/iter), and Fellow-Citizens, — I am very un- 
expectedly with you on this joyous occasion. When I left my 
home in New Jersey this afternoon, I did not even know that 
anything unusual was in progress in your city. I find myself 
30ur guest, and now you have called on me for a speech. At 
this late, or early, hour, after so many good things have been 
said, by so many good speakers, what shall I say? Shall I go 
back to the early days of your town's history, and call to mind 
some of the pleasant incidents of my early recollections of 
Slocum Hollow? As this part has been somewhat overlooked, 
I will, in my brief remarks, refer to the glory and work of the 
early days of your city's history; for, from its foundation to the 
present time, I have watched with deepest interest every step in 
your rapid rise and progress, your wealth and prosperity. Then 
you were a feeble folk. Now you have risen to rank and station, 
and you are here to-night to celebrate a great event in your 
history. — the lavingr of the corner-stone of a new court-house of 
a county secona to none for its real wealth and enterprise in this 
great Commonwealth. But we must not despise the day of small 
things. Forty years ago I believe there was but one lawyer 
rtbe late Charles H. Silkman") betweeo Carbondale and Pittston, 



-542 APPENDIX. 

and only the small church-building in the same territory, and 
very few (and they were very small) school-houses in this same 
valley. Now your lawyers are numerous, as I notice by the 
number here present, and j^our churches and school-houses are 
numerous, and noted for their style of architecture, and the 
moral and educational influences going out therefrom. (Ap- 
plause.) I will give you one or two items that can hardly iiiil 
to interest those living at that time, and those who have been 
born since. At that time our worthy chairman was about the 
only doctor in this section. The families were far apart and 
generally very healthy. The whole vote of Providence Town- 
ship, if my memory serves me, was about 147. The doctor, 
though exceedingly conscientious, had pretty hard work to keep his 
patients at that early day sick long enough to make a fair 
living. (Laughter.) He had to go into the lumber and drug 
business and trade a hoi'se occasionally to make a decent living. 
I remember having been called up from New Jersey to help in 
place of one of the book-keepers who was sick, or nearly so, by 
the loneliness here after coming from the large town of Oxford. 
It was then that, in order to relieve the monotony of the situa- 
tion, I proposed getting up a debating school. The thing took 
quickly, and I was appointed to draw up the constitution and 
b3'-laws, and our worthy chairman was apjiointcd to give the 
opening lecture. I need not tell you it was a grand one. 
{Laughter.) I believe it had to be repeated at numerous villages 
in the county. The late Hon. W. W. Ketcham and others began 
in this little thing to show their brain-power. For the generous 
part which I bore in the premises I was, with Mr. Charles F. 
Mattes, excused from taking part in the debates, and we were 
made "gentlemen judges" for the whole winter. Martin L. 
Newman, the chief of police of the town, and the only constable 
for miles around, was also on hand as a debatei-. Another great 
event transpired. It was resolved, at a public meeting held at 
the house of N. D. Green, Hyde Park, that the coming national 
anniversary ought to be and should be celebrated with imposing 
ceremony, and the citizens of Eazorville, Bucktown, and Slocum 
Hollow were invited to co-operate to make it a grand success, 
and show the folks down the valley what could be done up this 
way. There are a few yet living who well remember the da}', — 



Al'PKNDlX. 543 

'how the delegations came in froni the j)hices named ; how proudly 
old Captain t'eltz, the grand marshal, led the procession, with 
"sword and buckler" b}- his side, and his numerous Masonic 
emblems dangling by his coat-collar (laughter); how the delega- 
tion from Slocum Hollow, in single tile, fell in line with Colonel 
George W. Scranton at the head, Dr. Throop second, with fiddle 
and bow, Charles F. Mattes next with i-hirionet, some other one 
with bass-drum. Esquire Grant, R. W. Olmstead, William Sands, 
William Manness, and some twenty others, all marching to the 
tune of " Auld Lang Syne" down the old stump-fence road, over 
the teetering bridge, up the steep side-hill (laughter), and sol- 
emnl}^ into the little church, well packed with eager listeners to 
the oration that was to follow, and the martial music, and to 
hear the rendering by the vocal and instrumental powers present 
of the ode prepared for the occasion by one of the literati of the 
vallc}*, which was all pla3'ed and sung to the principal tune, 
"Auld Lang Syne." (Laughter.) 1 wish I had time to recite 
it, and could remember it. (Cries of "Give us a verse!") Well, 
it ran about this way : 

" The land vvlicreon our village stands, 
Where once the savage trod, 
Is mostly cleared, you'll understand, 
And covered o'er with sod." 

{Loud calls were here given for more of it.) Well, another versfc 
ran about thus : 

" Brave Washington, now dead and gone, 
No more of him you'll see ; 
America, her greatest son. 
He gained her liberty." 

Now, to be more serious. 1 have heard from the gentlemen 
who preceded me of the great struggle you have gone through 
with in finally obtaining your object, — a new county. How 
that, as you always need, you have had the good offices and 
friendship of your worthy chairman, the doctor, all the way 
through, in having the birth of this new daughter of old Mother 
Luzerne more than a still-birth. But, as the legal gentlemen 
present have stated it, no more new counties can be made under 
your present Constitution. I therefore have to congratulate 



544 APPENDIX. 

the friends from old Luzerne on the fact that no more counties 
are to be cut from her territory ; that she will be spared all these 
birth-pains in the future ; and now, side by side, these two 
great counties, Luzerne and Lackawanna, one in interest and 
origin, are to go on hand-in-hund in all the great work before 
them. And, in conclusion, let me here sa}^ that the broad, deep, 
and solid foundations laid here by the late William Henry, 
Colonel Geoi'ge W. Scranton, Philip H. Mattes, Sanford Grant 
(who still lives, and ought to be here to-night), and Selden T. 
Scranton, at the beginning, and later aided by Joseph H. Scran- 
ton and others, with the good will and fellowship of your chair- 
man and the other citizens then in this vicinity, have made it 
possible to have this new county, this corner-stone laid, this 
banquet, this city — the third in size in this Commonwealth — so 
well governed and orderly, that its police force is said to be the 
smallest, for the same-sized population, in the Union ; and for 
my friend, Mr. John Jermyn, who sits there, and who did his 
first day's work in the garden of Mr. S. T. Scranton for seventy- 
five cents, to be a millionaire; for your honoi'ed chairman to be 
another; for my good friend on my right, Mr. J. J. Albright, to 
come back from old Virginia shorn of his fortune, and now 
rich beyond measure; for my young friend Connolly, whose 
father did good work for the pioneers at the first old furnace, tO' 
be the respondent to-night for the junior members of the bar of 
Lackawanna Count}^ ; and so I might go on, did time and your 
patience permit, and call out by name hundreds of others who 
have made a name and fame, and money, and homes, here in 
this city and valle}^ because of the solid foundations laid, of the 
privations, hard work, and struggles of the pioneers, which 
were overcome by their indomitable pluck, and aided by 30ur 
churches, and schools, and good-fellowship. All these combina- 
tions, with those before alluded to, form, in history, a part of the 
enjoyment of this festive occasion. May God bless 3'ou all in all 
the proper aims and objects of life, and "Justice, with her even 
scales," be deeply fixed in your hearts, in your business trans- 
actions for yourselves and others. 

Gentlemen, I thank you for your patience, and your kind at- 
tention to my remarks, which have been too long extended. 
(Cries, " Go on ! Go on !") No, it is already too late. (Applause.) 



APPENDIX, 545 

The President called upon Mr. J. J. Albright. 

Mr. Albright : 

Mk. Chairman and Gentlemen, — You all know I am no 
speaker. 1 can only say I was here among the first pioneers. 
When 1 came I was offered this whole plot of ground, about 500 
acres, for $10 an acre. (A voice : "Why did you not bu3' it?") 
I had not the five thousand dollars. (Laughter.) At that time 
I did not remain here, but went to Virginia and returned in 1851. 
The outgrowth of Scranton has been much greater than any of 
us, even in what our friends call our fancy flights, ever con- 
ceived ; and as we have listened this evening to the recitals of 
the pluck and energy that have been for forty years with the 
citizens of this section on the subject of a new county, so I may 
say the same spirit has been manifested in her coal, her manu- 
facturing, and commercial interests. {Applause.) Dark clouds 
have settled, and storms at times have swept over us, and many 
have been shipwrecked, but dismay caino not so strong as to 
entirely dishearten all. There are those here to-night, and in 
our cemeteries lie others, who were always ready when the least 
glimmer of light appeared above the horizon to push forward to 
victory. (Applause.) 

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I am thankful that I have been 
permitted to see this day. It has been to me one of great jo\', 
and as I have listened this evening to the many most excellent 
speeches of congratulation, I desire to say that, while I wish to 
see prosperity and success on evexy hand, yet I more rejoice in 
the success of ovevy effort that tends to add prosperity to this 
city. I trust that no person who was active in the formation 
of this new county will ever have cause to regret the labor per- 
formed, and that the temple of Justice, whose corner-stone has 
this day been laid, will always be the house wherein equal and 
exact justice to all shall be administered by pure and upright 
judges. {Applause.) 

Calls for Mr. John Jermyn. 

Mr. Jermyn : 

Mr. President and Gentlemen, — I do not know as I would 

have been here with you to enjoy this most pleasant occasion if 

I had had the least intimation that I should be called upon for a 

speech, and I beg to assure you, gentlemen, that, with the excep- 

35 



546 APPENDIX. 

tion of this call, I am free to say that this has been one of the 
most agreeable evenings, and I may say mornings, I have ever 
been permitted to enjoy. The reminiscences of many incidents 
that have transpired durin.g rny residence here, some of which I 
was permitted to be a pariicipant in, has brought to my mind 
the period when I came first to Scranton. The world has dealt 
generousl}^ with me since then, and for that success I feel under 
great obligations to one who at all times and under all circum- 
stances was my friend, and who, as his brother has told you, I 
did my first day's work for in this locality. I have desii-ed for 
some years to give a public recognition of the esteem in which 
I hold his memory. This, to me, seems my opportunity, and, as 
no monument marks the spot where he now lies, I would sug- 
gest that a subscription for the erection of a monument to 
Colonel George W. Scranton be now started, and you may put 
me down for one, two, or three hundred dollars. (Applause.') 

Dr. B. H. Throop seconded the suggestion, and H. M, Ed- 
wards, Esq., moved the appointment of a committee of five to 
act with the chairman in carrying it into effect. The committee 
was appointed, and consists of Dr. Throoj^ and Messrs. John 
Jermyn, R. W. Archbald, H. M. Edwards, J. J. Albright, and 
Henry A. Kingsbury. 

Three cheers for the Toast-Master were lustily given. 
Calls for P. W. Gunster. 
Mr. Gunster : 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, — When I consented to act 
on the Committee on Toasts, it was with the distinct understand- 
ing that I would not be called upon to speak to-night. I tried 
to do my work well on that committee, and the fact that we have 
been so well entertained this evening is proof that the work of 
that committee has been done well. 

I am sorry that the gentleman who was on the programme 
to-night, and who would have done the subject justice, is not 
here to respond to the toast, " Our Absent Friends." 

Many men have been interested in this new-county question 
who are not with us to-night, and whom we shall never see again 
in this life, — men like William Merrifield and Captain Eobinson. 
And there is another man whom I shall always think of with 
the feeling that when I met him, I met a man. He wasn't born 



APPENDIX. 547 

in this country ; he was a Sootcluiuin, and, lilce all good Scotch- 
men, he loved the land of his birlli. l)iit because he preferred a 
country where it wasn't necessary- to iiave a standing army to 
keep the crown upon the royal head, he came to this countr}'. 
A man of keen perception, of strict integrity, of great energy ; 
a man of unusual ability ; a man who was devoted to his country, 
and when his countiy called, he was read}- ; a man who was 
devoted to the interests of this community; a man who may 
have had his faults, but a man who had his virtues and his 
friends. I know that man is with us in spirit to-night. I propose 
the name of William N. Monies. (^Applause.) 

The guests then rose and drank to the memory of William X. 
Monies. 

The President called upon Mr. l.suac C. Price. 

Mr. Price : 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, — By a mere chance I am 
here with you this morning. I heard yesterday that during 
the evening of that day you were going to have the laying of 
the corner-stone, and I took a great deal of pleasure in attend- 
ing yesterday and hearing the eloquent remarks of Judge Hand 
upon that occasion. I came here on my first visit some nineteen 
years ago, when cei'tain gentlemen who had control of my 
movements thought you could not take care of yourselves. 1 
was sent up here and remained four or five months at that time. 
I have listened to-night with pleasure to the remarks that have 
been made, and I am fully confident that if one tithe of what 
has been said about Lackawanna County and about Scrantoii 
City is true, you are amply sufficient to attend to your own 
wants at this time. 

I have heard this evening that this is one of the greatest 
counties, the third largest city in the Commonwealth, with the 
best judiciary, a most numerous and most distinguished bar. 
Some of that is news to me. I did think that the little settle- 
ment wherein I live down on the Delaware and Schuylkill Kivers 
had something of a bar, and some legal talent, but it is now 
somewhat of a question in my mind whether it amounts to as 
much as I thought it did. I have about made up my mind, 
"while sitting here, that if in my lifetime the period shall come 
that Mr. Dale has spoken of, and my city shall be submerged. 



548 APPENDIX. 

why I'll come up here and live {Laughter) — that is, if you will 
let me (" Yes, yes, come") ; for I am really glad to say that I 
believe that Seranton is a live place. When I first visited hero 
nineteen years ago all of the opposite side of the street was 
bare. Now on every hand I see good, substantial improvements, 
and as year b}' year I visit you, these improvements stand out 
in bold relief before me. I am glad to see them. I have some 
interests here. I have had confidence in the future of Seranton, 
and I am pleased to fully realize that my confidence has not 
been misplaced. If time would permit, I should be pleased to 
speak of some incidents that I have witnessed here, but the 
morning hour warns me 'tis time to stop. I thank the President, 
Dr. Thi-oop, for his invitation that permitted me to be with you 
and enjoy this pleasant occasion. (Cheers.) 

The band then played a medlej- of " Old Lang Syne" and 
" Home, Sweet Home," and amid universal congi-atulations, all 
retired, each to his home as best he could to enjoy his dreams. 

THE SCRANTON POOR-HOUSE. 

From the first settlement of the valley in 1769 up to 1835 
there is no record of a single pauper being in Providence town- 
ship. This included all the territory between Blakely and Pitts- 
ton. But u single "craz}' person" or idiot was found in 1845 
within a radius of five miles. For years afterwards foolish 
people were confined in a wooden cage in some remote corner 
of the house, without medical treatment or care, and thus they 
passed away their lives without murmur or complaint. 

With the development of Seranton, more especially, how 
changed the condition of things. On the cold uplands of New- 
ton township, seven miles from Seranton, a large tract of land 
was purchased some years ago by the late Henry GriflSn and 
others for a poor farm, upon which buildings for the insane and 
poor were erected for the township of Providence. 

A visit to this place less than a dozen years ago by Hon. 
John E. Barrett, then the able local of the Seranton Daily Repub- 
lican, with the writer, led his versatile pen to portray in such a 
true and graphic manner the character, the number, and the 
treatment of the unfortunate inmates which led to a general 
chancre in every department. 



APPENDIX. 549 

People ignorant of even the existence of the poor farm began 
to visit and interest themselves in the place, and the taxpaj-ers 
erected large and substantial buildings for the destitute and for 
the insane. 

The institution is now in a healthy condition, and is managed 
by a board of dii'cctors, of which Hon. Lewis Pughe is president. 
Every department is looked after so carefully by Superintendent 
Beemer that the labor is thoroughly utilized from the pauper 
quarters, and the poor tox is comparatively lights 



